HP-Compaq Trial Has Light Moments
WILMINGTON, Del., Apr 23, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Even though the case
is heavy with financial minutiae about a $19 billion corporate merger, the trial
over Hewlett-Packard Co.'s purchase of Compaq Computer Corp. has had some light
moments.
Right after HP's chief executive was sworn in as the first witness Tuesday -
identifying herself as Cara Carleton Sneed Fiorina - Stephen Neal, the attorney
for dissident HP director Walter Hewlett, was ready with a joke that played off
her name.
He asked the CEO whether she had seen a newspaper item over the weekend
suggesting that if the merger goes through, the Compaq Center stadium in San
Jose, Calif., should be renamed the "Fi-arena."
Fiorina stared at Neal absolutely stone-faced. Then, realizing it was a joke,
she brightened and smiled, as many in the standing-room-only audience laughed.
---
The next time someone doesn't return one of your phone calls, don't take it
personally. Apparently it even happens to one of the most powerful and
well-known executives in American business.
Fiorina testified that she called an executive with Northern Trust the day
before the shareholder vote, in hopes of persuading the brass at the
Chicago-based financial company to approve the Compaq deal.
When asked what happened next, Fiorina said she left someone a voice mail, but
the guy never got back to her.
---
A strict ban on cell phones and two-way pagers in the Daniel L. Herrmann
Courthouse in Wilmington is making life difficult for the dozens of arbitrage
investors attending the trial.
The arbs, as they are known, bet on the outcome of the deal by closely studying
the spread between Compaq's share price and what HP would pay for Compaq's
shares - a value that fluctuates as HP's stock price moves, because the deal is
an all-stock swap.
To anticipate the stock gyrations that would be set off by the verdict in this
case, arbs are trying to guess how the judge will rule by studying his
mannerisms and taking copious notes on testimony. "Seems evasive," one man wrote
on a yellow legal pad about Fiorina's initial testimony.
Although the judge, Chancellor William Chandler III, made few comments and his
face was obscured to many observers by a rectangular green lamp on his desk, a
few arbs noted when he rocked back in his chair or looked away briefly from a
lawyer making arguments.
Some arbs tried to relay their observations to their bosses in New York on
handheld computers equipped with wireless Internet access. But courtroom guards
angrily insisted that the equipment be kept in a box out in the hall, slowing
the arbs' quest to pass on up-to-the minute information that could be worth
millions.
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN
AP Business Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
-0-
APO Priority=r
APO Category=1700
(PROFILE
(CO:Hewlett Packard Co; TS:HWP; IG:CPR;)
)
KEYWORD: WILMINGTON, Del.
SUBJECT CODE: 1700
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