HP and Autonomy Corporation plc have announced plans for HP (through an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, HP SPV) to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Autonomy for £25.50 ($42.11) per share in cash. The transaction was approved by the boards of directors of both HP and Autonomy, and the Autonomy board of directors also has unanimously recommended its shareholders accept the Offer. The acquisition of Autonomy is expected to be completed by the end of 2011.
Founded in 1996, Autonomy is a provider of infrastructure software for the enterprise with a customer base of more than 25,000 global companies, law firms and public sector agencies, and approximately 2,700 employees worldwide.
"Together with Autonomy, we plan to reinvent how both unstructured and structured data is processed, analyzed, optimized, automated and protected. Autonomy has an attractive business model, including a strong cloud-based solution set, which is aligned with HP's efforts to improve our portfolio mix," said Léo Apotheker, HP president and chief executive officer, in a statement issued by the company. "We believe this bold action will squarely position HP in software and information to create the next-generation Information Platform, and thereby, create significant value for our shareholders."
Autonomy's software enables mission-critical enterprise applications, including pan-enterprise search, customer interaction solutions, information governance, end-to-end e-discovery, records management, archiving, business process management, web content management, web optimization, rich media management and video and audio analysis. According to HP, Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) is the de-facto standard among more than 400 OEMs, supported by substantial intellectual property (IP), and Autonomy is a significant cloud player with over 30 petabytes of customer information under management.
"Autonomy brings to HP higher value business solutions that will help customers manage the explosion of information," said Apotheker. Dr. Mike Lynch, chief executive officer and founder, Autonomy, will continue to lead the company and will report to Apotheker. Following the acquisition, Autonomy will operate separately. More information about HP is available at www.hp.com.