Hewlett-packard, Acquisition | featured news

Among H-P's fumbles, the Autonomy acquisition ranks among the costliest. H-P missed a chance to walk away while several factors pushed it toward a deal it almost instantly regretted.

For Leo Apotheker, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, a July 2011 meeting with Autonomy founder Mike Lynch at a chic seaside resort in France was pivotal to his effort to remake a storied technology giant.

Hewlett Packard Co rebuffed a request by former Autonomy Chief Executive Mike Lynch to detail accusations of accounting fraud leveled against the British software company and its former executives, and challenged Lynch to submit to questions under penalty of perjury.

Hewlett-Packard Co was sued on Monday by an investor who claimed the company knew statements about its Autonomy acquisition were misleading and led the stock to fall, according to lawyers representing the plaintiff.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said that a British company it bought for $9.7 billion last year lied about its finances, resulting in a massive write-down of the value of the business. CEO Meg Whitman avoided calling it a fraud, but said Tuesday that there were "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation PLC."

Dell on Thursday withdrew from the bidding for 3Par, which agreed to be acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $33 per share.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is bidding $1.5 billion for data storage provider 3Par Inc., offering 33 percent more than what rival Dell Inc. agreed to pay for the company just a week earlier.

Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy struggling smart-phone maker Palm for nearly $1 billion in cash. HP said Palm's webOS operating system will help it compete in the smart-phone market.

The $2.7 billion deal, valued at $7.90 a share, has already been approved by directors of both companies.