缺乏股東支持 惠普與EMC合併案告吹
How would a mega-merger with massive data-storage company EMC Corporation have played into Meg Whitman’s ongoing turnaround project at Hewlett-Packard? The business world may never get an answer, with merger talks between the two companies reportedly dead after nearly a year of sporadic discussions, according to The Wall Street Journal.
假如惠普（Hewlett-Packard）與大型數據儲存服務商EMC合併，將對首席執行官梅格o惠特曼重振惠普的計劃起到怎樣的作用？業界也許永遠也不會知道這個問題的答案，因爲據《華爾街日報》（The Wall Street Journal）報道，斷斷續續地磋商了近一年後，雙方的談判無果而終。
Citing anonyMous sources, WSJ said on Sunday evening as saying it was unlikely the deal talks would rekindle in what could have been an all-stock merger bringing together two companies with a combined market value of more than $128 billion. EMC has also reportedly held deal talks with Dell, while Cisco Systems and Oracle Corporation have also been cited as potential suitors for the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based company, WSJ says.
《華爾街日報》週日晚間稱，據匿名消息人士透露，兩家公司已不太可能再次商討合併事項。雙方原本可能完全以換股方式進行合併，合併後總市值預計超過1280億美元。《華爾街日報》同時指出，有報道稱總部位於美國馬薩諸塞州霍普金頓的EMC公司還與戴爾（Dell）進行了合併談判。另外，思科系統公司和甲骨文公司也曾被指有意跟EMC聯姻。Reports suggest that deal talks between HP and EMC fell apart due to concerns over shareholder support as well as the companies’ inability to reach an agreement on financial terms of a potential deal.
相關報道表明，惠普和EMC談判破裂，是因爲擔心無法獲得股東支持，雙方無法就合併的財務條款達成一致。
As Fortunenoted over the summer, EMC has recently been under pressure to break itself apart following a public appeal from an activist shareholder – hedge fund manager Elliott Management, which revealed a $1 billion investment in EMC in July. Elliott had been pushing for a spin-off of EMC’s 80% stake in publicly-traded software VMware as a way to boost EMC’s share value. EMC’s stock has jumped nearly 10.7% since Elliott’s stake was first reported this summer and the company’s shares have gained more than 18% so far this year.
今年夏天《財富》雜誌曾報道，激進股東、對衝基金公司Elliott Management（下稱Elliott）的公開呼籲，使EMC最近一直承受着拆分壓力。今年7月，Elliott公佈了對EMC的10億美元投資。EMC持有上市軟件開發商VMware公司80%的股份，而Elliott一直在催促EMC將該資產剝離出去，以便提升EMC的股票價值。今夏媒體首次報道Elliott投資EMC以來，EMC的股價已經上漲了近10.7%，今年初以來的漲幅更是超過了18%。EMC’s future is also in flux with the expected retirement of longtime CEO Joe Tucci, who has said he will call it quits early next year after about 14 years at the helm, though he has previously delayed his retirement.
EMC的未來還和首席執行官喬o圖斯的退休計劃糾纏在一起。長期以來一直擔任該公司CEO的圖斯表示，在掌權近14年後，他將在明年初退休。但此前圖斯曾經推遲過退休時間。Meanwhile, HP’s Whitman (No. 6 on Fortune’s most recent Most Powerful Women list) has maintained that she would not complete her company’s ongoing turnaround until sometime in 2016, but the company did recently put out third-quarter sales numbers that showed growth for the first time in more than three years. HP’s computer sales have also rebounded, jumping 11.6% in the third quarter, even as the company looks to shift focus to growth areas such as “cloud” computing. EMC has also tried expanding its cloud software services in recent years, including through the 2007 acquisition of cloud-based online backup service Mozy.
此外，惠特曼[她在《財富》雜誌最新一期最具影響力商界女性排行榜上位居第6]重申，惠普的扭虧行動要到2016年纔會結束。不過，最近公佈的第三季度銷售數字，確實出現了三年多以來的首次增長。儘管惠普打算把重心轉移到雲計算等增長領域，但該公司的計算機銷售也出現了回升，第三季度上升了11.6%。近幾年，EMC也在設法擴大自身雲軟件服務規模，包括在2007年收購了雲備份服務供應商Mozy。
