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Investment Firm Bids to Buy SCOs UNIX Operations
WebCowboy writes "It appears that there are still enough people out there deluded enough to see value in SCOs UNIX operations. York Capital Management has put in a $36 million bid for SCOs UNIX operations. The offer includes coverage of up to $10 million for payment of legal fees and York Capital would assume ownership of the disputed UNIX IP as well as what is left of the lawsuits.
Interestingly, SCO has offered this up for competitive bid (who would want to though?). Upon completion of the transaction, should bankruptcy court approve, SCOX would become solely a mobile applications provider (which is the only part of SCOs offerings that have undergone any meaningful development for quite some time)."
As it is, SCO owes Novell loads of money. Can Novell stop this sale and/or get the money?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Theres a sucker born every minute. Actually with 6 billion people in the world these days its probably 10 suckers every minute.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
York Capital Management is a hedge fund management outfit. They are not going to be breathe any life into SCO. They are going to tear it apart and sell off what they can and try to make a profit over and beyond the 30+ million they are intending to invest.
If they didn't see any upside here, they wouldn't have made the offer. You can bet SCO's got something of value that York will be able to sell off at a tidy profit.
I just hope that the bidder doesn't think that it's the IP. There is probably enough SCO support work out there to make a viable business though, if there are people who are still paying for their support.
I wonder how many degrees of separation there are between this new firm and Microsoft? MS has employed some wonderfull machinations in the past to further fuel tSCOg legal battle, and now when the battle is finally lost, up comes another firm offering some golden parachutes to the management?
Somehow I remain unconvinced that those responsible will be punished. The nuclear option seems pretty good to me, but I don't think the US would appreciate a 30 mile crater where Redmond used to be.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
The old /. joke expressed as 4 lines that end with 'Profit' is not really applicable.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
This is basically a private equity buyout. Private Equity is the big buzzword in the world of big money at the moment. What generally happens is that the buyer sees a company which it feels is underperforming and has a depressed share price, and offers a good enough price for it that the shareholders can't refuse. The money all comes from bank loans, which are secured on the company being bought -- a bit like a mortgage is secured on the house you're buying -- so as long as the bank agrees to the loan, it doesn't actually cost the buying company anything up-front. Once the purchase has gone through, they buying company needs to get the money to pay off the loan. This money comes from making savings at the company they've bought. Typically this would mean asset stripping, re-organising, selling off product lines and divisions, or whatever else it takes to make the money back. Wholesale redundancies are also almost certain. When a reasonably solid, viable company is bought out by private equity, they usually end up getting transformed into a much leaner and smaller company, and getting sold on again in the space of a couple of years. When it happens to a company that isn't solid and viable, the private equity firm will generally just sell off all the assets of the company, aiming to make a profit on the purchase price, and then quietly close down the husk that remains. This is what I predict will happen in this case. The buyer is looking at the assets -- the Unix operating system, the patents, licenses, and all the rest, and they've decided that it's worth more than $36 million. Of course, the strategy only works if there are people out there willing to buy the assets for more than $36 million. I suspect there probably are. Even with the lawsuit results, there is enough left to cherry pick. You can be pretty certain they'll get rid of the lawsuits as quickly as they can; they're paying a block of lawyer fees up front to secure the purchase, but they won't want to pay any more, as it'll eat into the profitability of their bid. The law suits would require a long-term strategy, but a buyout like this will be geared solely toward making a short-term profit. The asset management company certainly won't be buying any of their debts, so the $36 million goes to the remaining SCO company (SCO Mobile? I guess they'll rename themselves to try to get rid of the burden of the name SCO). Pays off their lawyer bills, pays off their debts to Novell and other creditors, maybe even leaves them with a few pennies to rub together at the end if they're lucky, leaving SCO Mobile as a theoretically viable (albeit not particularly valuable) company.
I can't know whether he's listening, but for York Capital Management to make a profit out of the operation, they need something viable they can sell. The parent post is in essence pointing at the support contracts for already installed POS devices as that viable thing.
Linux user since early January 1992.
"JGD Management Corporation has its principal executive offices at 1118 East Green Street Pasadena, California 91106 (http://www.secinfo.com/d12TC3.v51a.htm)
If you google the address the first match is a reference to a page on Edgar which provides the Form 4 (any of you US business types know what that is?) for a comany known as Arrowhead Research Corp which has one R Bruce Stewart as its CEO and Chairman of the Board.
(http://edgar.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHTML1?Sessi onID=T-hII2bI2EHwHrP&ID=3669175)
R Bruce Stewart founded Acacia Research Corporation in March 1991. (http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromPersonIdPersonTearshe et.jhtml?passedPersonId=927443).
Has anyone heard of Acacia Research before?
Hmmmm.
It has to be a coincidence."
They're going to throw Darl out of a plane, strapped to a large chunk of heavy metal?
Well, that's got to be worth $30 million.
Can we also make him wear a T-shirt saying something like "I tried to fix my obsolete business model using litigation", then drop him near the RIAA headquarters?
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
In a market where Facebook (without an obvious revenue stream) is valued in the billions...
You realise Facebook is pulling in $150 million per year revenue, right?Acacia = "InterActive Group" = "Arrowhead Research" (= Msft?)
"On May 29, 2007, we [Arrowhead Research] sold to certain institutional and accredited investors an aggregate of 2,849,446 shares of common stock (the "Private Placement Shares") at a per share purchase price of $5.78, and Warrants to purchase up to an additional 712,363 shares of common stock (the "Warrant Shares"), exercisable at $7.06 per share, in the Private Placement. Two investment vehicles of York Capital Management, a stockholder holding greater than 10% of the Company's Common Stock, participated in the offering."
http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.u4d4r.htm
"Arrowhead Research" refers to Arrowhead Research Corporation, a Delaware corporation and formerly known as InterActive Group, Inc."
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/symbols.asp?exchange=NGM&start=A&sort=cap&Type=0
"The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Arrowhead Research Corporation (a Delaware Corporation), formally InterActive Group, Inc., and Arrowhead Research Corporation (a California Corporation), a wholly-owned subsidiary. All significant intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.
. . . .
In October 2003, in connection with an initial private placement of Common Stock, the Company [Arrowhead Research] accepted 80,255 shares of Acacia Research Corporation, valued at $500,000, and $500,000 cash in exchange for 1,000,000 units. The shares are carried on the financial statements as marketable securities. See Note 3."
http://sec.edgar-online.com/2004/05/17/0001015402-04-002107/Section7.asp
"On May 29, 2007, we [Arrowhead Research] sold to certain institutional and accredited investors an aggregate of 2,849,446 shares of common stock (the "Private Placement Shares") at a per share purchase price of $5.78, and Warrants to purchase up to an additional 712,363 shares of common stock (the "Warrant Shares"), exercisable at $7.06 per share, in the Private Placement. Two investment vehicles of York Capital Management, a stockholder holding greater than 10% of the Company's Common Stock, participated in the offering."
http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.u4d4r.htm