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Xerox is done playing mister nice guy – the company has named a slate of directors it wants to shoehorn onto HP's board to spearhead its £33bn hostile takeover bid.
The copier giant will nominate 11 directors at HP's upcoming shareholder meeting in an attempt to gain control of the company's 12-person board. The list includes former senior directors at Aetna, United Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Novartis and Verizon.
Nominees
Betsky Atkins – Chief executive of Baja Corporation, a venture capital firm.
George Bickerstaff – Co-founder and MD of M.M. Dillon & Co., a healthcare and tech boutique investment bank.
Carolyn Byrd – Chair and CEO of GlobalTech Financial, a consulting firm.
Jeannie Diefenderfer – A former Verizon executive, who is now a member of the Workforce Development & Support Advisory Panel at the NSA, where she advises on workforce development and diversity and inclusion.
Kim Fennebresque – former chairman, president, and CEO of financial services firm Cowen Group.
Carol Flaton – former MD at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm.
Matthew Hart – President and CEO of Hilton Hotels until their buyout by Blackstone in 2007.
Fred Hochberg – Chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States during the Obama Administration.
Jacob Katz – Former chairman of Grant Thorton, a leading independent audit, tax, and advisory firm.
Nichelle Maynard-Elliott – Recently served as executive director of M&A for industrial gas giant Praxair.
Thomas Sabatino Jr – Former executive vice president and general counsel of Aetna, an American health insurer.Xerox has been chasing its much larger rival since November, offering $33.5bn or $22 per share. HP has so far refused to play ball, thrice rebuffing Xerox on the grounds that its offer "significantly undervalues" the business.
The nominations signal a more aggressive approach from Xerox – the company previously warned things were going to get nasty – pressuring HP to negotiate a deal. A vote on the nominees could act as a proxy referendum on the proposed merger, and installing several directors more favourable to it will help.
"We believe HP shareholders will be better served by a new slate of independent directors who understand the challenges of operating a global enterprise and appreciate the value that can be created by realising the synergies of a combination with Xerox," CEO John Visentin said in a statement.
HP responded by calling the nominations "a self-serving tactic by Xerox to advance its proposal, which significantly undervalues HP and creates meaningful risk to the detriment of HP shareholders".
Additional, earlier, coverage at The Register
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:56AM
I have run xerox industrial laser printers on and off for 25 years. From Docutech to IGEN and everything in between.
Their printers significantly improve over their lifetimes. They start off buggy and prone to breakdowns, but after a few years they are pretty reliable if you treat them well.
People think they break down or need servicing a lot, but they are comparing them to pissy little desktop machines. I have worked on machines where we put seven million prints a month through them. They do a 'PM' (Periodic Maintenance) every so often (3~4 hours downtime every week/month depending on load), and many of the 'breakdowns' are due to clueless managers delaying PM's to try to get more out before they have to stop.
If you are big enough to run a Xerox industrial printer, you are big enough to get a support contract, and nuts if you don't.
Note: I was dealing with Fuji-Xerox not the USA parent Xerox. Not sure if it is different over there.