back to article Hewlett Packard Enterprise in talks to offload software, asking for '$8bn to $10bn'

The breakup of Hewlett Packard Enterprise is set to continue with execs locked in talks to offload the software division to private equity biz Thomas Bravo. The asking price is said to be $8bn to $10bn. The sale, reported first by Reuters, would close the curtain on one of HPE’s most embarrassing episodes, namely the …

  1. EnviableOne
    Thumb Up

    Sounds like a good deaal to me

    So acquisitions worth more than $20bn with income of $3.3bn FOR $9bn?????

    so ROI of 3 yr? and IP and customer base worth considerable amounts too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Sounds like a good deaal to me

      Hi, I have a bridge to sell you, and some European and UK banks...

      /If I was feeling kind, I'd point out that anyone can make things look like a bargain on paper before the sale completes...

      Mine is the one with the memories in my pocket of people actually falling for this stuff.

    2. Paul Hargreaves
      Meh

      Re: Sounds like a good deaal to me

      Income != profit. So the ROI will be substantially longer.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: Sounds like a good deaal to me

        Not if you make some excel cells hidden accidentally of course.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sounds like a good deaal to me

          I assume to make it look really good, you offset some bills to next years accounts, sell all the furniture and make is look like you had some profits for people to drool over just before they realise is was a rouse.

      2. Schultz

        "Income != profit"

        Well, if it's software and you are willing to minimize future development, you might wring out a few years of income $\approx$ profit. Add the few customers that are locked in for the near future and this might be a decent money spinner.

  2. Mutton Jeff

    Tim Nice but Dim school of economics...

    Buy high, sell low.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How to make a small fortune running HP

    Start with a large fortune.

  4. Mr Dogshit

    Wah wah waaaaaaah

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    How about, once they've finished rewinding all this stuff they get rid of a few top management who obviously never really belonged there and buy Agilent and Keysight. They could put together quite a good business which would be well respected. What could they call it? Hewlett Packard?

    1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      neat idea, but...

      That could work if Agilent and Keysight would be on the buying side.

      Otherwise it'd play out in the usual manner, which would be good only for generating juicy headlines.

      1. Alistair
        Coat

        Re: neat idea, but...

        "Otherwise it'd play out in the usual manner, which would be good only for generating juicy headlines"

        .......

        And substantial legal fees............

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: neat idea, but...

          ...... and the bankers' cut(s) ......

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. fishman

    You never know

    You never know how much a company loses due to aquisitions and then later sales of companies. There all all sorts of tax credits and writeoffs, and assets kept (like patents), so by the time the accountants are done things look quite different.

  8. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    The most popular HP product in Silicon Valley

    Is probably their vacated buildings.

  9. luis river

    Great opportunity

    The soft Enterprise UK "Autonomy" and EEUU "Vertica" is leading tech in their category, they are grand value companys, Mercury Enterprise is one veteran and well established company IT, I think what they are great opportunity for purchase

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Great opportunity

      Ok.... if you say so. I have my doubts as others have pointed out.. once they've been assimilated, what gets sold is always what was bought. HPE might just hang on the juicy bits like certain patents.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Also, don't forget the $1.2 billion the company paid for Palm with a view to developing WebOS for the Touchpad and the subsequent clusterfuck which followed that...

    I'm surprised the company even still exists in any form whatsoever, and feel total disgust and loathing for the incompetent and totally inept idiots who have subsequently destroyed the brilliant legacy which Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard left behind not too many years ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Remember a certain Mr. Bryant on here telling us how the memristor was going to change everything?

      1. luis river

        Memristor not dead

        Wait old chap, HPE works yet about memristor, their partnership with WD en RRAM can brougth, great surprises.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Memristor not dead

          >Wait old chap, HPE works yet about memristor, their partnership with WD en RRAM can brougth, great surprises.

          And the next Duke Nukem will be great as well huh?

    2. Naselus

      "I'm surprised the company even still exists in any form"

      I'm not sure it does tbh. For most of the last decade, it's been used as a corpse for would-be Republican candidates to carve chunks off of to feather their nests in preparation for failed political runs. It pretty much died at least a decade ago and every leader since Apotheker was fired has only really been interested in pillaging it (he himself was merely incompetent).

      I can't remember the last time we had an HP story that wasn't either about massive job losses, chunks of the business being sold, or a change in the C-suite as another mega wealthy buffoon leaves with a 7- or 8-figure severance package, having driven some much-loved division into the floor (using through the massive layoffs and selling big chunks of it).

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next

    Motorola gone. HP selling off the pieces now. Next walking dead companies IBM and Cisco. Once the cash is gone and they exhaust the stock buyback scheme >> its going out of business fire sale time...

    my opinion

  12. Stephen McLaughlin

    Probably A Good Move

    Recently I was working with an HP Enterprise Tools Team configuring and implementing their Datacenter management suite and almost all of them were consultants, only their management team were actual HPE employees. I found that very strange since the company was in the process of axing thousands of workers.

  13. Miss Lincolnshire

    Hewlett Packard - from "Garage" to "Garage Sale" in 78 years

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What is HPE's future strategy? It seems like they are just going to sell off all the units and then give the cash back to shareholders.

    1. asdf

      >What is HPE's future strategy? It seems like they are just going to sell off all the units and then give the cash back to shareholders.

      That actually should be the strategy of a number of other companies as well (granted a very small minority but still) but management is always so sure they can turn it around and give themselves big bonuses regardless.

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