Formed company misspends, is in red? (9)
I believe the answer is:
comprised
'formed company' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with fundamental existence as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'misspends is in red?' is the wordplay.
'misspends' becomes 'comp' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'is' inserted within 'red' is 'rised'.
'comp'+'rised'='COMPRISED'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for comprised that I've seen is " Included".)