HP Ups The Ante For 3PAR; Offers $1.8B In Cash For Data Storage Company
Clearly these companies want 3PAR. Bad. Dell had previously signed an agreement to acquire 3PAR for $18 per share, with a provision for matching competing bids. HP subsequently outbid Dell for the data storage company, offering $24 per share in cash, or also roughly $1.6 billion at the time. But Dell and 3PAR signed an amendment to the agreement reflecting the new offer price, which brought its bid up to par with HP’s offer.
3PAR provides a virtualized utility storage platform that enables customers to significant drive down cloud computing infrastructure, storage and associated management costs.
HP’s Dave Donatelli says in a release: “Our revised proposal offers superior value to 3PAR’s shareholders, while maintaining our disciplined approach to only pursuing acquisitions that we believe will strengthen our portfolio and create long-term value for our shareholders…Not only is our offer superior to Dell’s proposal, HP remains uniquely positioned to execute on this combination given the number of synergies between the two companies.”
It should be interesting to see if Dell continues the bidding war. HP could have just made an offer that 3PAR can’t refuse. Or Dell could propose $2 billion for the company and we’ll revisit this again.