Fiscal 2010 revenues of HPQ was $126 billion, making it the world's largest IT company (number 11 in Fortune 500). How long it will remain so depends on management's progress in plans to break up the company.
HP is paying £25.50 per share for Autonomy for all outstanding shares (valuing the company at around £7bn) - a transaction recommended by its Board of Directors. Autonomy has been the subject of bid speculation before (September 2010, when the shares rose 4% when the FTSE was flat, and Microsoft and Oracle were flagged as possible bidders).
Funds seem to react to the move, switching more allocations to tech stocks, interpreting the takeover as a sign of increased M&A activity in the sector. ARM, Microfocus and Blinkx (video search engine) also saw their share prices rise.
References:
The UK takeover code can be found here.
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