Autonomy Confirms In Talks With US Giant Hewlett-Packard
19 August 2011 - 4:32AM
Dow Jones News
Autonomy Corp. PLC (AU.LN) Thursday confirmed that it was in
talks with U.S. giant Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) about a possible
offer for the U.K. data-analytics company.
Autonomy was responding to recent press reports that the world's
biggest computer maker was close to a $10 billion takeover deal of
the company.
"It would make perfect sense for one of the big data-base
players to want to own Autonomy--the software is indeed unique and
growing in importance," said Tim Daniels, TMT Strategist at
Olivetree Securities.
H-P may announce plans as early as Thursday, according to people
familiar with deal. These plans could include H-P spinning off its
personal computer business and using Autonomy to boost a software
and services platform, according to some reports.
"H-P would be buying this as part of a refocus of the business
on software. They have been talking for a while about a focus on
software--clients now don't have a problem accumulating data, the
problem is the structuring of it and Autonomy's software does
this," Daniels added.
H-P is expected to report its latest quarterly earnings after
the U.S. market closes.
The technology giant has been under investor pressure because of
what is seen as its underperforming stock price, and there have
been calls to explore options for its low-margin PC business.
H-P was also in the spotlight after its former Chief Executive
Mark Hurd left the company last year amid a scandal, and current
CEO Leo Apotheker stepped in.
Autonomy has a market value of about GBP3.5 billion. H-P is at
$62.4 billion.
-By Marietta Cauchi, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842 9241;
marietta.cauchi@dowjones.com
(Gina Chon of the Wall Street Journal contributed to this
article.)
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