Palm Sells 25 Pct. Stake to Buyout Firm
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SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Smartphone maker Palm Inc. will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million, the company said Monday, and announced that the former technical guru behind the iPod will become chairman.
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Faced with mounting competition in the smart-phone market, Palm Inc. is selling a quarter of its company to a private equity firm to arm itself with new leadership, most notably the former technical guru behind the iPod.
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PeopleSoft Inc. (PSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Monday agreed to a sweetened $10.3 billion buyout by rival software maker Oracle Corp.
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The three largest shareholders in MAN sold their 25 percent stake in the German machinery and vehicle maker on Wednesday for EUR1 billion, marking a further step in the disentangling of Germany Inc., the ...
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Oracle announced Monday that it has increased its PeopleSoft takeover bid to US$24 a share, calling the figure its &quot;best and final&quot; offer for its rival.
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PDA and smartphone maker Palm on Monday announced a recapitalization plan that will plant two former Apple executives on the company&#8217;s board of directors and will infuse $325 million in funds into the company. In return, Palm&#8217;s selling a 25 percent stake to Elevation.
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Swisscom  has agreed to repurchase a 25 percent stake in Swisscom Mobile from British mobile phone company Vodafone  for 4.25 billion Swiss francs ($3.48 billion), in a long-awaited deal.
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Smartphone maker Palm Inc. will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million and name the former technical guru behind the iPod to be chairman, the company said Monday.
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The FMR Corporation, the holding company of Fidelity Investments, said that it controlled 25.1 million shares of the Atlanta-based carrier.
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Oracle Corp. sent yet another letter to PeopleSoft Inc.&#39;s board of directors on Monday morning, pointing out that a majority of PeopleSoft&#39;s owners are prepared to sell at $24 per share and requesting once
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(InfoWorld) - One of the main attractions of Palm's business was its software expertise, according to private-equity firm Elevation Partners, which plans toÂ acquire about 25 percent of the struggling mobile device maker. Ending speculation that Palm would be gobbled up by mobile phone vendors Motorola or Nokia, Elevation said Monday it would pay $325 million to buy approximately one quarter of Palm's shares. Subject to shareholder approval and other closing conditions, the deal is due to be completed in the third quarter of this year. Elevation has been looking closely at Palm for the last six to seven months, said Roger McNamee, a managing director and cofounder of the private-equity company. He believes limits are being reached in hardware design for mobile devices with a sense that the devices can't be shrunk any further without losing the functionality customers expect. McNamee admitted that Palm had been out of sync with developments occurring in the mobile hardware device market. "They'll close that gap relatively soon, then the game will be all about software," he said. "Software is where this company [Palm] truly excels." The company has struggled in the face of strong competition from Motorola and Nokia with their smartphones and has found it hard to sell its products to corporations hooked on Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices. At the same time, Palm anticipates that more and more people will access the Internet from mobile devices. "We're incredibly well positioned to pursue that opportunity," said Ed Colligan, Palm president and CEO. "We have a broad range of software efforts underway here. Software is the battleground of the future." Palm continues to design systems infrastructure, applications, and services, which it's extending into different form factors, including its newÂ Foleo handheld computer, he added. Once the deal closes, McNamee is set to join Palm's board of directors along with his colleague at Elevation, Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO. The debut of Apple's iPhone, the company's first ever cell phone, due out June 29, will benefit Palm, McNamee said. "We've every reason to believe that the iPhone will be incredibly successful," he added. "It's a chance to bring software to the fore. Palm has a long tradition of great user interface design." Elevation's investment in Palm is all about providing the vendor with better resources to execute on its current product road map, McNamee said, to both retain its current employees and attract new talent. The investment will also enable Palm to continue making small acquisitions, Colligan added, with the company expecting to have more than $300 million in cash on its balance sheet once the Elevation deal closes. Palm and Elevation are pinning their hopes for positive changes to Palm's development processes on a third new board member, Jon Rubinstein, who will join Palm as its executive chairman. They're looking forward to the combination of Rubinstein and Palm's founder and current technical guru Jeff Hawkins. While Rubinstein helped in the creation of Apple's iPod music player and iMac computer, Hawkins pioneered both the first handheld and smartphone devices. "It's a team that can't be beat," McNamee said. Colligan added that while Hawkins has a good feel for the "next big thing" in technology, Rubinstein is very strong on the execution of product development.
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- Palm Inc.  said it will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million, and use the proceeds along with the cash on hand and new debt to pay $9 in cash to stockholders.
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The Nasdaq Stock Market is selling a nearly 20 percent stake to Borse Dubai and is taking control of the Nordic exchange operator OMX as part of a sweeping settlement of their battle for control of OMX.
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Record sales, but numbers still down Palm is still losing money, despite the Centro selling in record numbers (for Palm). The company lost $9.6m in the three months to 30 November, on revenues which are down 11 per cent on last year to $349 million.â¦
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Swisscom  has agreed to  repurchase a 25 percent stake in Swisscom Mobile from British  mobile phone company Vodafone  for 4.25 billion Swiss  francs ($3.48 billion), in a long-awaited deal.
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Treo smartphone maker Palm Inc.  said on Monday it will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million in a deal that brings in a former senior Apple Inc.  executive as chairman.
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(InfoWorld) - Palm Inc. began taking orders for its Treo 680 smartphone on Wednesday, hoping to expand from its core business customers to a larger market of casual, first-time users. Palm is charging US$399 for the "unlocked" version of the phone, allowing users to subscribe to any carrier, and plans to begin shipping the phones shortly after Dec. 1. One carrier has already announced a plan for the phone -- Cingular Wireless LLC will begin selling the Treo 680 for $199 on Friday. Palm hopes to attract a new demographic by designing the Treo 680 with an internal antenna, making it slimmer than previous models, and offering it in four colors, according to a statement by John Hartnett, Palm's senior vice president of global markets. In another bid for those casual customers, Palm has moved beyond purely business functions, and will offer entertainment applications like the ability to show Flash-based movies such as those seen on the YouTube Web site, and to play MP3 songs through a 30-day trial of Yahoo Inc.'s mobile, digital music service. New users might also appreciate the Google Maps function, which offers personalized driving directions or addresses for nearby restaurants. "Location-based services hold great promise in a wide variety of areas, such as helping friends find each other, helping advertisers more effectively target prospects, and even ensuring that no man ever has to stop for directions again," said Avi Greengart, principal analyst for mobile devices with Current Analysis. As a phone, the Palm OS-based device operates on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) networks. Palm hopes the Treo 680 will help it to grow beyond its roots in the slow-growing PDA (personal digital assistant) market, and claim a greater share of the burgeoning smartphone industry. Smartphone shipments worldwide grew 75.5 percent to 34.7 million units in the first half of 2006, according to research firm Gartner Inc. In comparison, PDA sales grew only 5.7 percent to 7.4 million units. North America is the only region where PDAs continue to outsell smartphones, so Palm hopes its new product has arrived in U.S. markets in time to catch a wave of people upgrading to the new technology. With only 5 percent of the worldwide market for combined PDA and smartphone markets, Palm needs the Treo 680 to be a financial success in order to compete with its larger rivals. Nokia Corp. is the largest vendor, with 42 percent market share, followed by Research in Motion Ltd. with 6.5 percent and Motorola Inc. with 5.3 percent, according to Gartner. Posting strong sales through the holiday season will be crucial for that plan, as Gartner predicts smartphones sales will continue to rise, totaling 81 million for the full year of 2006. That growth will be fueled by a jump in consumer demand, focused on individual details like fashion and multimedia, according to a statement by Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza. Â