Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par

By | August 27, 2010, 6:37am PDT

If Dell wins 3Par it will have to pay up heavily. Just 90 minutes after Dell went to $27 a share to buy 3Par, HP offered $30.

What a game of chicken.

And it’s not over, according to traders. Wall Street pushed shares of 3Par above $31, a price that indicates that traders think Dell will counter.

HP said in a statement:

HP has increased its proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of 3PAR to $30 per share in cash, or an enterprise value of $2.0 billion. The proposal represents an 11 percent premium above the most recent price offered by Dell Inc. of $27 per share. HP’s proposal is not subject to any financing contingency and has been approved by HP’s board of directors. Once approved by 3PAR’s board, HP expects the transaction to close by the end of the calendar year.

It’s pretty clear at this point that the 3Par purchase is about ego and not really fundamentals. 3Par shareholders must be stoked to be in the middle of a HP-Dell duel. Perhaps 3Par turns out to be the storage acquisition of the century, but this bidding war is all about the chest thumping.

The game of chicken:

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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Talkback Most Recent of 22 Talkback(s)

  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    Maybe whomever/whatever 3Par is they should just say thanks, but no thanks to both, and go on their way. If they don't watch out, someone like Oracle will come in and take over.
    On a previous message on this subject, someone used and instead of an. no proofreading?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dhays
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    @dhays Incredible run up of the stock.

    Please, no grammar nazism.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kent42
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    @dhays

    Nobody says "Thanks but no thanks" to getting paid triple the market value for their company. happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    SlithyTove
    27th Aug 2010
  • Unless they don't like what the new owners might do...
    @SlithyTove
    I know this might be very hard for some to believe, but not ALL of us can be purchased. Sure, it's very TEMPTING to be offered huge bucks. But if the devil offers you the world for your soul, do you take it? Not all buy-outs are a good thing, and some businesses have ethics that say "We do things better than the people trying to buy us out". Or worse, selling out can enable behaviour / realities that are bad for us all. I believe the right view is always the long term view, not necessarily the "cash in my pocket" view.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    naibeeru
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    I edit my post and it gets reported as spam? Someone is not reading the messages, evidently.
    I just said i tmeks no difference to me, I never heard of 3Par before. I also said that maybe they should just say thanks, but no thanks to both comapnies, and go on their merry way. A third party could come in and thwart both.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dhays
    27th Aug 2010
  • Don't take it too personally...
    @dhays
    It's a bug in the software that hasn't been fixed... YET...

    Refresh the page before you edit and it should work OK.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Wolfie2K3
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    People who write professionally SHOULD pay attention to what they write. It makes their ideas much easier to read and understand. It is much more professional, making their ideas more worthwhile and able to be trusted. It shows a lack of caring about their audience. When someone writes a note full of poor spelling and grammar, it is very hard to read and understand, so quit defending their lack of caring for the customer. I will probably never come back to this page so you can cut me as much as you want, I won't know about it.
    Whatever Naziism is to mean.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dhays
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    @dhays what r u a English teacher? Oops I used single letters for words so I guess I'm not professional
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Par-Pro
    29th Aug 2010
  • What if ...
    IT company Z wants to buy let's say company A and then sees their opponent IT company X bid for company B. Next thing you know Z bids for B too to drive up the price which then ultimately makes it harder for X to bid for other companies in the near future. And it keeps X's mind off of A (which might be more valuable). Is that what's going on here ?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    TxM2xTx
    27th Aug 2010
  • Why are all the other numbers afraid of 7?
    @TxM2xTx
    Because 789.

    THAT'S what's going on here.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ericesque
    27th Aug 2010
  • Dell should let HP run the price up ...
    ... and let HP take 3PAR. Dell could try to buy Pillar if Larry will let them, and if not go after Compellent.

    3PAR has a good product, but Pillar and Compellent are strong enough at probably 1/3 the price. Also, the confusion a 3PAR acquisition will create for HP storage customers is worth it.

    If you are an HP EVA customer, and HP buys 3PAR, you have a dead-end storage platform. Dell could target that.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    meh130@...
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    @meh130@...

    Incorrect. The reason HP is purchasing 3Par is to fill out the upper end of their product line. At the large enterprise end of the spectrum HP is reselling HDS (Hitach) storage. The EVA line is considered midrange storage. This is a great time to be an EVA customer - you can expect some of this storage tech to trickle down into their midrange products. 3Par makes an exceptionally product, in fact, last time I checked the were #1 on the SPC-1 benchmarks.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jon780@...
    28th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    @meh130@...

    Incorrect. The reason HP is purchasing 3Par is to fill out the upper end of their product line. At the large enterprise end of the spectrum HP is reselling HDS (Hitach) storage. The EVA line is considered midrange storage. This is a great time to be an EVA customer - you can expect some of this storage tech to trickle down into their midrange products. 3Par makes an exceptionally product, in fact, last time I checked the were #1 on the SPC-1 benchmarks.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jon780@...
    28th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    This acquisition will be a False Positive for the Winner :P

    The Winner's Curse will weigh heavily on the new Owner of 3PAR...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Rahul Mulchandani
    27th Aug 2010
  • RE: HP out for Dell blood: Goes to $30 a share for 3Par
    If Dell counters this bid, then the shareholders better start asking what their Board of Directors are doing. Even at the original offer by Dell it was contingent on financing, HP does not have that problem. Dell is barely holding on now and is ripe for takeover itself, why are they even contemplating moving into a new area where they are definitely a newcomer, where are they going to get the money to incorporate this and still keep their PC business going. I think Dell would be better off fixing their tarnished PC reputation than taking on something bigger than they are. Dell wake up HP has a gigantic war chest, you have nothing unless Michael Dell underwrites the purchase.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Rndmacts
    27th Aug 2010

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