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Technology Stocks : Enterprise Informatics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg h2o who wrote (3632)	5/14/1999 2:22:00 PM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13797

Open Text exits as Hummingbird tops bid for PC Docs TORONTO, May 13, 1999 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- After two clear rebuffs, Open Text Corp. got the message Thursday and ended its pursuit of PC Docs Group International. Waterloo, Ont.-based Open Text said it was withdrawing its bid in the wake of Hummingbird Communications' enhanced $305-million offer, announced earlier in the day. Open Text didn't cite the richer offer in its retreat. It simply said the PC Docs board wouldn't let it perform due diligence by examining the books. ''Without access to PC Docs information we are unable to properly assess the value of PC Docs to Open Text Corp.,'' said Tom Jenkins, Open Text's chief executive. Open Text initially went after PC Docs last December. Since then there have been counter-moves by the PC Docs board, a rebuffed bid by Solution 6 Holdings of Australia, an initial Hummingbird bid, a revised Open Text bid, and finally the apparently successful Hummingbird offer. The board of Toronto-based PC Docs, a specialist in managing information electronically in corporations, said it will support Hummingbird's bid for all of the common shares of PC Docs at $11 in cash per share. That offer topped Open Text's $8.50-a-share bid, filed April 29 after Hummingbird had made an all-shares offer of one Hummingbird share for each three PC Docs shares. The $8.50-a-share bid ''was still subject to due diligence,'' said Thomas Hearne, Open Text's chief financial officere. ''Their board decided that we would not get access and we'll just leave it at that.'' Hearne said no more runs at PC Docs are planned but ''we'll continue to move forward on our acquisition strategy when the timing works out and we're ready to do other things.'' PC Docs is to become an operating division of Hummingbird. Rubin Osten would keep is position as president of PC Docs and become vice-chairman of Hummingbird. PC Docs said shareholders with 16 per cent of the common shares have signed irrevocable agreements to tender to Hummingbird. The takeover is conditional on two-thirds of the common shares of PC Docs being tendered by May 19. Hummingbird Communications, based in Toronto, is an international provider of network and business intelligence software. Open Text says its software and services enable large enterprises to move toward ''hyper-innovation'' with collaborative intranet, enterprise and extranet applications. Copyright (c) 1999 The Canadian Press (CP), All rights reserved. -0- By James Dalziel * end of story *