In a brief write-up of HPE/Micro Focus from Paul Kunert:
Shareholders will also be asked to approve a $500m return of value, approximately $2.09 per share,” the statement to the City added.
Well, who doesn’t like money?
That said, performance is declining:
The [HPE Software?] business has shrunk in recent years, with turnover dropping from $4.06bn in fiscal 2012 ended 31 October to $3.19bn in fiscal 2016. Profit before tax during that period slipped too. In HPE’s Q1 ended January, sales in the software arm fell 8 per cent year-on-year to $721m.
All that M&A didn’t work out too well:
The software division at HPE is made up of a collection of separate units including Autonomy, Mercury Interactive, ArcSight, three businesses that alone cost HPE more than $16bn to acquire. Other elements include Vertica (buy price undisclosed) and relatively smaller IT management ops outfits.
For more context, see my notebook on the HPE/Micro Focus merger back in September, 2016.
Source: HPE dumps Grandpa Software in Micro Focus care home, hightails it