HP, Compaq CEOs Remind Workers Still To Act As Competitors
By: Donna Fuscaldo, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Hewlett-Packard Co . (HWP) Chief Executive Carly Fiorina and Compaq Computer (NYSE: CPQ - news) Corp. (CPQ) Chief Executive Michael Capellas reminded employees of both companies to "continue to act as if they belong to separate companies ADVERTISEMENT
until the official launch of the new H-P."
In a letter to Compaq and H-P employees Wednesday, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fiorina and Capellas said that even though the results of the shareholder vote on the merger of H-P and Compaq won't be certified for a few weeks, the companies are continuing to move forward " aggressively" with the integration and launch planning.
"Putting anything on hold while we wait for a final proxy vote tabulation is simply not an option," said the executives in the message.
According to Fiorina and Capellas, within the next week, employees will hear announcements on who will report to whom on the new management team, as well as the selection process management will use to fill jobs in the new company.
Fiorina and Capellas also said they were "quite gratified" based on a preliminary count of votes that HP received a "majority of the shares held by employees in the HP employee stock purchase plans, which includes the Share Ownership Plan and the legacy Stock Purchase Plan." The executives noted that employee's individual voting results would not be provided to H-P.
Shares of H-P were recently trading down 2%, or 36 cents, to $17.72, on volume of 5.8 million shares, while Compaq's stock was also down 2%.
-By Donna Fuscaldo, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5253; donna.fuscaldo@ dowjones.com |
