No surprise, Walter Hewlett, the scion of the Hewlett family is out of a job. Are you surprised by the news that he got fired from HPĂs board for opposing Hewlett-PackardĂs merger with Compaq Computer. And then when he filed a lawsuit against the company for trying to buy the votes from Deutsche Asset Management, the board decided that it was time to fire the guy, whose father (and his partner) is reason these fat cats have jobs.
I have very little reason not to trust Mr. HewlettĂs reasons for lawsuit. Here is why: Hewlett says the proxy committee of Deutsche Asset Management had made its decision to vote against the deal on or before March 15. However call it coincidence that on March 15, HP closed a multibillion-dollar credit facility for which Deutsche Bank acted as a co-arranger. Does anyone else see a conflict of interest or is it just me?
In a press release Monday, Walter B. Hewlett said “I believe that the HP Board has done HP shareholders a disservice by excluding me due to our differing points of view. Dissent is not disloyalty.”
Now Fiorina and her wrecking crew can complete the job of totally ruining HP. She did it before at Lucent and she shall strike again. Mr. Hewlett was the only board member who did not buy the rosy scenarios painted by Carly Fiorina, a chief executive I despise and in my opinion ranks as a future member of CEO Hall of Shame. She has promised that only 15,000 jobs will be lost as a result of the merger ł well I think it is going to be many more.
I think the new HP will just become increasingly irrelevant in the technology industry. This was the main reason, I penned an open letter to Carly ¦destroy my company˛ Fiorina in the January issue of Red Herring. You can read the open letter by clicking here.
“At a minimum he represents 49.5 percent of shareholders and possibly more,” David Katz, chief investment officer of Matrix Asset Advisors, an early opponent of the deal told News.com, and pointed out that the decision was unfortunate, given that most boards are under pressure to nominate more independent thinkers in the wake of the Enron scandal.
Anyway read a fantastic overview of the HP-Compaq merger on CNET: NEWS.COM.
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