The latest move in the bidding war for 3PAR belongs to Hewlett-Packard Co. who has yet again outbid Dell Corp. with a $2 billion offer on Friday. The counter offer trumps Dell’s bid late Thursday that matched HP’s $1.8 billion.
HP’s $2-billion counter offer is a continuation of the intense week-long bidding saga between the two companies for 3PAR, which supplies storage architecture on demand, and is known for its thin provisioning capabilities.
It all began when Dell originally struck a deal to buy 3PAR for $18 per share, or roughly $1.15 billion, but the agreement had a clause which opened the door for competing offers. HP then made a $1.6-billion counter offer for the company, a bid that Dell then matched. And, just yesterday, HP upped its bid to $1.8 billion. Dell matched that too.
HP was not immediately available Friday for comment. But at the time of its $1.8-billion offer, an executive said in a statement: “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,” Dave Donatelli, general manager of enterprise servers, storage and networking at HP.
“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.”