EMC bid for Legato surprises local division
EMC bid for Legato surprises local division
EMC has reportedly offered US$750 million to buy out software vendor Legato, which has taken Legato's Australian division by surprise.
Reuters news agency is claiming that EMC has offered $750 million for Legato, but it is unclear whether Legato will accept the bid. EMC was being tight lipped about the story at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in the US.
"It's our company policy not to comment on things like that," said Andrew Brown, the chief financial officer of EMC. At the same event Joseph Tucci, the chief executive of EMC said that the company is planning to buy software companies this year in an effort to diversify its revenue streams, but he would not comment on the Legato story. Nobody from EMC's local office was available for comment.
Legato has reportedly appointed financial house Morgan Stanley to conduct an auction. Scott Phillips, the regional manager for Legato in Australia said he had heard the auction rumours a "couple of weeks ago", but had not received any official confirmation.
Mr Phillips said he had only read the same reports today as the press and could not comment.
Storage software specialists Veritas is also believed to have made a lower offer than EMC. A host of technology companies were expected to join the auction for Legato, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Computer Associates (CA) and Sun Microsystems. It is believed that IBM did not bid as it has recently acquired Rational Software.
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