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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 01 2020, @09:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the waiting-for-a-better-deal-or-holding-onto-assets-or??? dept.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/xerox-withdraws-hostile-bid-for-hp-citing-impact-of-coronavirus-51585688762

Xerox Holdings is withdrawing its hostile bid for HP Inc., the latest example of Covid-19's wide-ranging impact on markets.

Xerox (ticker: XRX) said Thursday afternoon that it will pull both its tender offer for HP (HPQ) shares and its proposed slate of directors for the HP board.

"The current global health crisis and resulting macroeconomic and market turmoil caused by Covid-19 have created an environment that is not conducive to Xerox continuing to pursue an acquisition of HP Inc.," Xerox said in a statement. "Accordingly, we are withdrawing our tender offer to acquire HP and will no longer seek to nominate our slate of highly qualified candidates to HP's Board of Directors."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:18PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:18PM (#978173)

    Have they turned into a VC? Do they still churn out copier/printing rigs?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:40PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:40PM (#978184)

      I think more like a conglomerate or maybe a vertical monopoly? Not a VC from what I know. ~10 years ago Xerox bought ComDoc a regional printer/copier dealer, about $100M annual sales. We had several medium sized copiers on service contract...and then one day when I needed some service it wasn't there. Now the same location only sells Xerox, before they had Rocoh and several other brands. A quick search shows that Xerox has bought a number of these formerly independent dealers.

      (more googling)

      Wow, check this page, https://www.news.xerox.com/investors/acquisitions [xerox.com]
      In the last ~10 years it lists 35 acquisitions -- looking at the names, they were all independent dealers/service companies for printers/copiers/business machines, supporting medium/large offices/medical/etc and printing/graphic arts/advertizing companies. I think vertical monopoly on printing looks like the goal, buying up all the competitors.

      In my metro area (about 1 million population) it looks like there is only one viable independent copier/printer dealer/service company left in addition to Xerox.

      With HP printers Xerox would also have a good start on monopolizing the smaller office business--anything where the local staff aren't capable of maintaining a printer/scanner/copier on their own.

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:24AM (1 child)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:24AM (#978193)

        They're Fuji/Xerox where I live. Some sort of joint venture type thing I think.

        I have had only one dealing with them, about 10 years ago, I gave the Fuji/Xerox sales guy a tender document, which outlined what we wanted and when.

        After chasing him several times, he returned a proposal which offered us a whole lot of things we didn't want and missed a bunch of stuff we did want for about 50% more than everyone else. I was buying photocopiers, which I thought would be easy.

        I haven't dealt with them since.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:28AM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:28AM (#978224)

          I haven't seen a Xerox machine for ages. The large machines I see in corporate settings these days seem to be Ricohs.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday April 02 2020, @05:39PM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday April 02 2020, @05:39PM (#978391)

        Capitalism works in your favour here:
        1. Start up a printing business
        2. Xerox buys you out of the game.
        3. Profit
        4. Goto 1

        Need capital to set up the printing business.

  • (Score: 2) by fadrian on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:21PM (4 children)

    by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:21PM (#978181) Homepage

    Some idiot CXO had visions of 1980's hostile takeovers in his head.

    --
    That is all.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:44AM (3 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 02 2020, @12:44AM (#978198) Journal
      It'll be far from the only bad decision blamed on or covered up by covid.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:49AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @07:49AM (#978256)

        Something tells me a certain President is exempted from this prediction?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 02 2020, @10:00PM (1 child)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 02 2020, @10:00PM (#978462) Journal

          Something tells me a certain President is exempted from this prediction?

          I doubt it. Trump can probably blame a lot on covid now.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @11:45PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 02 2020, @11:45PM (#978487)

            CoVFEFE-19

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