Samuel J. Bennett wrote on Nov 14 1998 5:14PM EST:
>Hellloooooooo...what's with Michael J. Cline, now he or GAP own >nearly 2.5 million shares.
Maybe they are finally going to be bought :-)
Since the stock tumbled, there have been repeated rumors that MANU will be bought. However, at this point I don't see who. BAANF was a possibility, but I don't see the motivation at this point. ORCL already has a strong relationship with ITWO, and they have their own product. However, it would be great for ORCL to get MANU's customer base. They could use it to push their own ERP package. I believe that the vast majority of MANU's customers run SAP's R/3.
The last possibility is ITWO. ITWO has practically no sales into the CPG and process market (yeah, yeah, I know about the Frito-Lay announcemnts ... show me something real). MANU and ITWO together would be formidable. Individually, their customer bases are completely complementary. SAP would have a very tough time going against them.
However, the management styles and cultures of the two companies are very different, and that is usually a large barrier to a merger. In competitive times like these, anything can happen, I suppose.
That's my $.02.
P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an ex-employee of MANU, but I don't speak for anyone but myself ... and sometimes, I am not even sure of that. |
