Hewlett-Packard announces $1.2 billion in cash acquisition of Palm

On June 23, April 29, Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday that it would acquire Palm in $1.2 billion in cash, with an average price of $5.7 per share. The acquisition has been approved by the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard and Palm and still requires approval from Palm shareholders.

Palm lacks sufficient cash in its competition with Apple's Google, making it difficult to operate its business. Now, with the help of Hp, we can leverage our strength. Before that, it was rumored that Huawei, HTC, and Dell were Palm buyers, but Hp was not mentioned too much.

When the market closed on Wednesday, Palm's share price was $4.63 per share, and its highest share price in the past 52 weeks was $18.09. Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Palm is expected to use $1 billion in cash, plus debt, totaling $1.2 billion. Hewlett-Packard said that the webOS operating system can help Hewlett-Packard seize the fast-growing smartphone market. Jon Rubinstein, the current CEO of Palm and former Apple executives, is expected to remain in the company.

The acquisition was significant for both companies: Palm's sales at Verizon Wireless were unsatisfactory, but it had innovative software, but its smartphone design was poor. Elevation Partners, the biggest shareholder, will leave Palm after the sale. For Hewlett-Packard, the acquisition of Palm means that the IT giant at the helm of Mark Hurd has another battlefield. In addition to iPaq, Hewlett-Packard's performance in the smart phone field was mediocre. Prior to this, Lenovo and Dell, the PC manufacturer, had a special liking for Palm, and HP's preemptive acquisition was just a step ahead.

In HP's statement, the company revealed the following strategies: 1. Acquiring WebOS of Palm; 2. Using HP's powerful scale and financial resources to help Palm break through; 3. Using HP's channels and business relationships, make Palm a heavyweight enterprise. 4. Build a mobile ecosystem.

The acquisition will officially end on April 9, July 31.

HP is the world's largest technology company with 0.3 million employees. At two o'clock P.M. a.m. (a.m., Beijing time), Hewlett-Packard will hold an online meeting to announce transaction details. The meeting was chaired by Todd Bradley, vice president of HP personal Systems Group.