Palm Shareholders OK Private Equity Deal

Palm(PALM Quote) shareholders approved the $325 million investment by Elevation Partners in the company and agreed to proposals allowing it to borrow $400 million in an associated debt financing and make a cash distribution of $9 a share to its investors.

In connection with the transaction, Palm will appoint Jon Rubinstein as executive chairman.

Roger McNamee and Fred Anderson of Elevation Partners will also join the company's board, said Palm.

The deal between Palm and Elevation Partners had been announced in June.

Shares of Palm were down 4 cents to $14.96 in recent trading. Palm's stock is down nearly 14% in the last three months.

In a separate announcement, Palm Europe announced a new smartphone, the Palm Treo 500v, which wil be available exclusively to Vodafone(VOD Quote) customers beginning in October.

The Treo 500v runs on a Microsoft(MSFT Quote) Windows Mobile 6 standard platform and has a full keyboard, large screen, video-streaming capability and multimessaging functionality.