:O SHOCKING! Since the other day their CEO said they're not selling!Quote:
April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Palm Inc., creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation.
The company is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, said the people, who declined to be identified because the sale isn’t public. Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may be potential bidders, said the people. Dell Inc. also looked at Palm, though it decided against an offer, according to two of the people.
Palm shares surged 32 percent last week on renewed speculation that the Sunnyvale, California-based company would get a takeover bid. Before the rally, the stock had plunged more than 60 percent this year, dragged down by disappointing sales of the Pre and Pixi phones. Chief Executive Officer Jon Rubinstein, who developed Palm’s latest operating system, was counting on the devices to attract customers and restore its status as an industry pioneer.
Palm, which has a market value of $870.8 million, could help its new owner vie with North American smartphone providers Apple Inc., maker of the iPhone, and Research In Motion Ltd., which sells the BlackBerry. Palm’s devices also compete with phones running Google Inc.’s Android software, and its patent holdings span mobile hardware, software and power-saving technologies.
Lynn Fox, a Palm spokeswoman, declined to comment. Qatalyst’s Sally Palmer and Goldman Sach’s Andrea Rachman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Lenovo Chief Financial Officer Wong Wai Ming declined to confirm or deny the company’s interest in Palm, as did Chen Hui-Ming, the finance chief of HTC. Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn didn’t respond to a call for comment.
Palm rose 51 cents, or 11 percent, to $5.16 on April 9 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.
Elevation’s Investment
For Elevation Partners, the investment firm that owns about 30 percent of Palm, a sale would cap a 16-month roller-coaster ride in which the shares surged more than 10-fold before erasing most of the gain.
After Palm introduced the Pre at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2009, the stock jumped 80 percent in two days to $5.96. By September, the shares had climbed as high as $17.46. The stock then dropped 79 percent over the next six months as Palm’s sales growth was outpaced by marketing costs, and the company lost market share to Apple and Google.
