14 DAY TRIAL // Despite what PR nightmare the acquisition of Autonomy contributed to for HP, the deal was, in the end, sealed, as revealed by the newest press release on the latter's part.
When HP sacked its previous CEO and chose Meg Whitman to take his place, it was hoped that the new leader would revert those two infamous decisions that made the company's stock plummet in a matter of days.
One choice was spinning off the PC company, even though HP is practically the world leader in that segment.
The other was buying enterprise information manager Autonomy (makes software that searches e-mails, phone calls, tweets and other unstructured data) for a price that most everyone saw as large beyond reason ($10.4 billion / 7.86 billion Euro).
Apparently, the latter decision was not reverted, an official announcement now stating that the transaction has been completed.
Then again, going by what analysts have been saying, it was quite likely that HP would not have been allowed to cancel the deal under British takeover regulations anyway.
Autonomy, at least, feels quite optimistic after this development, especially since it will operate as a separate unit led by current CEO Dr. Mike Lynch.
“This is a historic day for Autonomy, our employees and the customers we serve, as we combine HP’s phenomenal assets and Autonomy’s specialized skills to produce systems that handle all the information in the enterprise, regardless of the format it is in,” Lynch said.
“We are at the dawn of a new era when it is the ‘I’ in IT that is changing, not just the ‘T.’”
HP paid Autonomy shareholders £25.50 per share in cash (29.82 Euro / $39.41), though not all the capital was bought yet.
Only 87.34 percent of all shares were acquired (213,421,299) and the offer for the rest remains open.
“We are committed to helping our customers solve their toughest IT challenges. The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer.
“Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making.”