Palm's Wild Ride Ends in H-P's Hands
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) - Get Report moved in to save Palm (PALM) on Wednesday, acquiring the smartphone maker for $1.2 billion.
H-P offered $5.70 per share for the company, a 23% premium over Palm's closing price of $4.63 Wednesday.
In after-hours trading, Palm was up 27.4%, or $1.27 to $5.90. H-P shares were down 38 cents, or 0.7%, to $52.90 after hours.
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The move caps a wild ride for Palm, which was lifted from oblivion last year by a new leadership team focused on building a new touchscreen-centric smartphone operating system to rival
Apple's
(AAPL) - Get Report
iPhone. The Palm Pre and its smaller follow-up the Pixi did not sell well at
Sprint
(S) - Get Report
, however.
To follow that dismal experience, would-be sales partner
Verizon
(VZ) - Get Report
in favor of a
(GOOG) - Get Report
Android-powered
Motorola
(MOT)
phone.
Palm's sales woes and dwindling finances forced the company to seek alternatives, namely a buyer.
With H-P, Palm could hardly have found a better partner. H-P, the No. 1 computer maker, has been nearly absent in the mobile phone market. Rivals like
Dell
(DELL) - Get Report
and
Asus
have made plans and partnerships to make phones, but H-P has lacked a plan -- until now, that is.
"Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing," H-P personal product chief Todd Bradley said in a press release.
"We're thrilled by HP's vote of confidence in Palm's technological leadership," Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein said in the press release. Rubenstein is expected to remain with Palm as a unit of H-P.
