Hewlett-Packard completes $10.3-bn Autonomy acquisition

Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world's largest personal computer maker, today said that it has gained control of UK-based business information-management software maker Autonomy Corp, through its $10.3-billion takeover offer.

Holders of about 87 per cent of Autonomy's stock accepted the offer of £25.50 ($39.35) per share in cash, allowing Autonomy to join the HP fold.

HP had said in August that it was interested in buying Cambridge-based Autonomy, the second-largest software company in Europe, for £25.50 a share, a premium of 64 per cent to Autonomy's closing price on 17 August. (See: Hewlett-Packard to acquire UK software firm Autonomy for $11.7 billion)

In mid-September, the Palo Alto, California-based company extended the deadline from 2 September to 3 October after only 41.62 per cent of Autonomy's shareholders tendered their shares to the offer.

Cambridge-based Autonomy, which has Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Nestle and the US Securities and Exchange Commission and 25,000 others as its clients, was founded by researchers at Cambridge University.

It specialises in a variety of enterprise search and knowledge management applications using adaptive pattern recognition techniques, which can make sense of complex, unstructured information such as emails and phone calls.