惠普拒绝施乐收购要约

个人电脑及打印机巨头惠普的董事会拒绝了施乐的大手笔收购要约。

在11月17日发布的公开信中，惠普公司的首席执行官恩里克·洛雷斯和董事会主席吉普·伯格表示，施乐的收购报价“严重低估了惠普的价值，不符合惠普股东的最佳利益”。

刚开始施乐主动提出，以每股22美元的价格收购惠普，总金额超过300亿美元。最初的并购建议书显示，施乐的管理层认为，合并对两家公司均有益处，不仅可以加强双方的复印机业务，预计也能够产生“约20亿美元的成本协同效应”，惠普公开发布了该建议书。

目前惠普的市值是施乐的三倍以上，因而施乐若想收购惠普，势必要大举融资。惠普董事会质疑，如果施乐实施融资计划，“将产生巨额债务，可能拖累合并后公司的股票”。

惠普还对施乐的业务基本状况提出了质疑，指出“2018年6月以来的12个月间，施乐的营收从102亿美元下降到了92亿美元。”虽然惠普已经不像前几十年一样是推动技术进步的主要力量，但仍然是举足轻重的巨头，截至2018财年的三年内，其销售额年均增长13％，达到585亿美元。

值得注意的是，惠普表示仍然愿意与施乐探讨潜在的合并事宜，但希望对“潜在合并可实现的协同效应进行更严谨的分析”。

洛雷斯与伯格在公开信中写道：“我们与施乐的管理层深入接触过，也查阅了对施乐尽职调查的相关信息，相信公司能够迅速评估潜在交易的益处。我们愿与施乐进行进一步的沟通，加深对业务的了解，也更好地了解合并能够带来的价值。”

上周，激进投资者卡尔·伊坎透露自己持有惠普4.24％的股份，值得注意的是，他也持有施乐10.6％的股份。一些分析师认为，伊坎是施乐打算收购惠普计划的幕后推手，但伊坎表示该并购提案由施乐董事会独立处理。

伊坎曾经表示“合并势在必行”，但他并没有具体提到施乐收购惠普对两家公司来说是最好的选择。

《财富》杂志已经与施乐联系，在获得答复后将发布最新进展。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

HP Inc.’s board of directors has rejected Xerox’s blockbuster bid to take over the personal computer and printing giant.

In a public letter released on November 17, HP Inc CEO Enrique Lores and the company’s board chair Chip Bergh said that Xerox’s proposed bid “significantly undervalues HP and is not in the best interests of HP shareholders.”

Xerox originally offered HP an unsolicited bid to take over the company for $22 a share in a deal worth over $30 billion. Xerox management believed that the deal would benefit both companies and bolster their respective copy machine businesses, ultimately resulting in “cost synergies of at least $2.0 billion,” according to the original proposal letter, which HP also publicly released.

But in order for Xerox to acquire HP, a much larger company whose market capitalization is over three times the size of Xerox, the copy-machine giant would have had to raise a significant amount of financing. HP’s board questioned the “potential impact of outsized debt levels on the combined company’s stock” that would potentially result if Xerox carried forth with its financing plans.

HP also questioned the fundamental health of Xerox’s business and noted “the decline of Xerox’s revenue from $10.2 billion to $9.2 billion (on a trailing 12-month basis) since June 2018.” Although HP isn’t the major technology force as it was in previous decades, it’s still a massive business and has managed to grow annual sales by 13% to $58.5 billion over a three-year period ending in its fiscal 2018.

It should be noted that HP said it is still “open to exploring” a potential combination with Xerox, but it wants to do a more “rigorous analysis of the achievable synergies from a potential combination.”

“With substantive engagement from Xerox management and access to diligence information on Xerox, we believe that we can quickly evaluate the merits of a potential transaction,” Lores and Bergh wrote. “We remain ready to engage with you to better understand your business and any value to be created from a combination.

Last week, activist investor Carl Ichahn revealed that he owns a 4.24% stake in HP, which is noteworthy considering he also owns a 10.6% stake in Xerox. Some analysts believed Ichahn was orchestrating Xerox’s plans to takeover HP, but Ichahn said Xerox’s board was handling the proposed deal on its own.

That said, Ichahn said that “a combination is a no-brainer,” however he didn’t specifically cite Xerox’s proposal to buy HP as the only possible deal that would make sense between the two companies.

Fortune contacted Xerox and will update this story if it responds.