Now, London-listed Micro Focus is understood to have agreed to pay more than $8bn (£6bn) for the software business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which split from PC-maker Hewlett Packard list year.
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The HPE deal includes many assets formerly part of the Cambridge-based Autonomy company, which Hewlett Packard acquired in an 11bn U.S. dollar deal in 2011 before later writing off three-quarters of the value of the business. $6.3 billion, after HP Enterprise receives $2.5 billion in cash prior to the completion of this merger. Once the latest transactions are closed next year, HP Enterprise’s head count will have declined from about 210,000 to between 50,000 and 60,000, Ms. Whitman said.
An HPE senior executive will serve on the board of directors of the combined company.
This story has been corrected to show that HPE shareholders, not HPE, will own 50.1 percent of the combined company.
Included in this lot being offloaded are the HPE businesses that focus on big data, application delivery management, information governance and management, enterprise security and management of IT operations. HP’s $11 billion purchase of Autonomy was supposed to form the central part of the US group’s move into software.
The purchase will include key HPE software assets Autonomy and Vertica. At the same time, the move enables a standalone HPE to realize its vision of being the industry’s leading provider of hybrid IT.
Micro Focus said buying HPE Software aligns with other recent acquisitions of Serena Software and the Attachmate Group. The new company will be overseen by Micro Focus executive chairman Kevin Loosemore.
A number of continuous take overs has made Micro Focus, which is established in Newbury, England, from being a relatively small player to being a major company, with revenues nearly doubling in 2015. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was initially down 1.9% at $21.67 in the after-hours trading session. Enterprise Group revenues were $6.5bn, down eight per cent, while Financial Services revenue of $812m was up one per cent. ®.
The move is very similar to the one HPE pursued recently when it merged its enterprise services business with CSC, noted Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.
The software merger also formalizes collaboration between HPE and SUSE.
HPE CEO Meg Whitman told USA TODAY the company is still focused on systems software, which powers its machines.
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After its shake-up is completed, HPE expects to have about US$28 billion in annual revenue, down from US$52 billion in its last fiscal year.
