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Technology Stocks : HWP -- Hewlett Packard -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave B who wrote (3873)	12/14/2001 4:40:34 PM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4722

Dave...lets see who is left on the BOD and what executives leave with Carly.... The ashes of HWP are in the making. Jerome

To: Dave B who wrote (3873)	12/14/2001 4:49:33 PM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4722

"Active" has a pretty specific meaning. They can't take a seat on the board of directors or be involved in any way in day-to-day management. They also can't put forward any proposals to the shareholders or start a proxy fight. The BS about how they saw the proposal, agreed to it, then changed their minds, is just that -- BS. Legally they were not permitted to be involved in the forumlation of the proposal or the debate within the BOD. I suspect they were "informally" notified of what was going on, but they would have been prohibited from real participation in the process or the decision. Basically, all they are allowed to do is vote their shares, yes or no, on any matter that the BOD chooses to put before the shareholders. This rarely matters because the BOD has rarely put forward a proposal that received such a lukewarm reception among investors. Because they reception was so poor, the foundations now find themselves effectively being the swing vote. Frankly, I'm surprised that Fiorina/Capellas didn't do a lot more to make sure this deal appealed to the bulk of institutional shareholders up front. Had they done so, the shares in the hands of the foundations wouldn't matter at all. IMO, this was more of a Fiorina ego problem than anything else. She hasn't figured out that her reputation is quite tarnished since her Lucent days (particularly considering how elusive and ephemeral her "success" at Lucent turned out to be). She can no longer get away with making a bold proclaimation and having everybody go along. This deal needed much more groundwork and the reasons for it needed to be much better articulated up-front. The arrogance that led them to skip those necessary steps is what's killing the deal now. mg