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Novell, a software company that rose to power along with Intel-based computers but failed to keep up with rivals such as Microsoft and Red Hat, announced today an end to its independence with a $2.2 billion acquisition by Attachmate.
Under the agreement, privately held Attachmate will pay $6.10 per share for Novell, a 9 percent premium over Friday's closing price of $5.59 and a 28 percent premium over the last public trading day before Elliott Associates made an offer of $5.75 per share in March. Novell rejected that offer.
Attachmate, which is run by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Bravo, describes itself as a company that "enables IT organizations to extend mission-critical services and assures they are managed, secure, and compliant."
In addition, Novell is selling "certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft," for $450 million in cash that's part of the payment through Attachmate.
"We believe this transaction is great news for our customers. Novell has a long history of innovation and market leadership, and this tradition will be preserved and built upon through this transaction," Novell Chief Executive Ron Hovsepian told customers in an e-mail about the deal.
Novell rose to success through sales of its NetWare operating system, a common fixture in the 1990s on Intel servers to provide services used by PCs running Microsoft's DOS and and Windows operating systems. It also sold higher-level server software for functions such as e-mail and, for a time, the WordPerfect suite of software that competed with Microsoft Office.
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Under the agreement, privately held Attachmate will pay $6.10 per share for Novell, a 9 percent premium over Friday's closing price of $5.59 and a 28 percent premium over the last public trading day before Elliott Associates made an offer of $5.75 per share in March. Novell rejected that offer.
Attachmate, which is run by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, and Thoma Bravo, describes itself as a company that "enables IT organizations to extend mission-critical services and assures they are managed, secure, and compliant."
In addition, Novell is selling "certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft," for $450 million in cash that's part of the payment through Attachmate.
"We believe this transaction is great news for our customers. Novell has a long history of innovation and market leadership, and this tradition will be preserved and built upon through this transaction," Novell Chief Executive Ron Hovsepian told customers in an e-mail about the deal.
Novell rose to success through sales of its NetWare operating system, a common fixture in the 1990s on Intel servers to provide services used by PCs running Microsoft's DOS and and Windows operating systems. It also sold higher-level server software for functions such as e-mail and, for a time, the WordPerfect suite of software that competed with Microsoft Office.
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