HP today announced that it has acquired Palm at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by both HP's and Palm's boards of directors and is expected to close during HP's third fiscal quarter which ends July 31.
So HP is stoked but what about Palm? It would seem the people at Palm are just as excited at the thought of a merger with HP, despite what CEO Jon Rubinstein said last week. In an interview with the Financial Times, Rubinstein said that while the board would definitely consider any serious offers to purchase the company, he was confident the company could prosper as an independent company. Rubinstein even said he had a plan to get Palm out of the red and into the black. "Palm can survive as an independent company," he said at the time. "We have a plan that gets us to profitability." In a statement today, Rubinstein said his company was "thrilled" about the deal with HP.
"We're thrilled by HP's vote of confidence in Palm's technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP's longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS," said Rubinstein. "We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners."
