Palm Sells 25 Pct. Stake to Private Firm
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By MAY WONG SAN JOSE, Calif. - 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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Palm is still profitable but it can't thrive in the long run, according to a noted industry analyst. So now is a good time for the company to put itself up for sale.
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A pending buyout offers investors a chance to make a 25% profit without even trying.
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Lenovo Group said Wednesday it has acquired a majority stake in International Business Machines Corp.'s personal computer business for $1.25 billion, one of the biggest Chinese overseas acquisitions ever.
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Albert L. Lord will receive $224.9 million for his stock options as part of the companyâs $25 billion takeover.
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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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The exchange, Asiaâs seventh-biggest equities market, planned to sell a stake of as much as 25 percent of itself to overseas bourses.
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Platinum Equity will acquire Covad Communications for about $304 million, making the communications services company the latest technology company to sell to a private equity 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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Guidant Corp.&#39;s 10-year run as one of Indiana&#39;s most successful public companies will end with a $25 billion sale to health products giant Johnson &amp; Johnson.
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Palm Inc.'s financial future looked a little more secure Monday as private-equity firm Elevation Partners said it will pump US$325 million into the mobile device manufacturer.
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Private Capital Management LP, which owns nearly a tenth of hostile takeover target PeopleSoft Inc., (PSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday that it will not tender its shares to Oracle Corp.
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Chinese PC vendor Lenovo announced its acquisition of IBM&#39;s Personal Computing Division (PCD) for a combination of cash and stock totaling US$1.25 billion.
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Palm Inc. has reached a deal to sell a quarter of the company to Elevation Partners, a private equity firm, for about $325 million as part of a plan to reorganize the company.
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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 adds a former Apple Inc. executive to its board.
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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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The Canadian government will sell its 19 percent stake in oil producer and refiner Petro-Canada (PCA.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) in a public offering, the company said on Thursday.