It's not clear they've spent the whole $12MM. The submission headline includes spin not in the source article.

This is kind of off topic, but why do you write million as "MM"? I've noticed some people do it; is it a local-convention thing? What does the second M stand for? To me it means "millimetre" and although I can guess from context, just curious about it.

update: OK, answered my own question: It comes from Latin "Mille" meaning "thousand", so MM is a "thousand thousands". Apparently common in finance. Well, now I know!

You got it. It feels more natural for me to use the financial practice 'MM' than the scientific/computing 'M' for 'mega' when talking about dollars... though I'm sure I've sometimes used 'M'.

I suppose the fact that the unit has already been declared as a prefix -- '$' -- also sways the choice away from SI abbriviations just a little. 'M' for 'mega' is usually a unit prefix. So the usage consistent with MB or Mb or MHz or MW for dollars might actually be '12M$', which is just weird.

Everyone seems to use '$12K' for thousands, though, because the Roman M would be too prone to confusion.