Slashdot Mirror
SCO Goes Private With $100 Million Backing
AmIAnAi writes "Just when you thought it was all over, the SCO story takes a new twist. SCO has received $100 million financing from Stephen Norris Capital Partners to get them out of Chapter 11 and go private 'The move gives Stephen Norris, whose namesake founder was a co-founder of private equity giant The Carlyle Group, a controlling interest in SCO, which now has a platform to continue its court battle with Novell Inc. over royalties from the Unix server operating system, SCO's main business ... According to a statement from the company, SNCP already has a business plan for SCO that includes pursuing its legal claims.'"
-----
Thanks to spacelifeform on GL:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/12/bloomberg/bxfour.php
NEW YORK: Four Seasons Hotels, the manager of 74 luxury hotels, said Monday that it had agreed to be taken private by Bill Gates, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and the chief executive for $3.8 billion, including debt.
Coincedence?
----
Who is Stephen Norris,
http://www.snpartners.com/norris.html
Looks like there could very easily be some behind the curtain financing of this through foreign nationals.
---
Mr. Norris acted as a principal financial advisor to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud of Kingdom Holding Company, in structuring and negotiating the re-capitalization of Citibank, which returned over $15 billion in profits on about $590 million of equity invested. He also advised or played a key role in other Kingdom Holding Company investments. He was appointed by former president George H.W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as one of five governing members of the $100 billion Federal Retirement System Thrift Investment Board.
Since 1997, Mr. Norris, and certain members of his team, have worked on a number of investments including real estate investments in Europe and the United States. They were involved in amongst others the privatization of Thompson CSF, the recapitalization of Suez, the acquisition of portions of Credit Foncier's real estate portfolio in Paris by the German firm of IVG, the formation of Nomura's (London) bid for a Dutch mortgage bank, the offer by a major Saudia Arabian investment firm for Lamborgini in Italy, and the formation of a bid by Leucadia International's for the Labouchere Bank in Holland. He also negotiated and structured investments in Synxis Corporation, which was backed by George Soros and Mr. Norris, and MARC Global Holdings.
---
Novell is now assured of getting every penny they've got coming to them.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
When looking at companies, the products are important but only as indicators as to the people behind them. When Amazon was losing money hand over fist, its shares were still sky-high because people believed that Jeff Bezos and his team were a good bet. I can't imagine how anyone could feel that, after everything, SCO could possibly have assembled a $100M team. I don't know how to say this without offending the dozens of people left at SCO, but you'd have to have some form of brain damage, or be really, really desperate for gainful employment to still work there.
E pluribus unum
It's not about winning money. It's about making sure SCO's corporate veil isn't pierced.
If that hive of villainry fails, some of their dealings could see the daylight. And at least a couple of big companies are really interested in making sure this doesn't happen. So they funnel money into the sinking ship to keep it afloat or make it sink in a secluded place -- it's better to lose some cash than have the dirt revealed.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Just make it into a fantasy game. You're SCO, she's the open source community, the KY is SNCP's contribution... oddly enough, the image hash to post this comment anon is "uncouth". Interesting. :)
Where top Bush administration types meet the members of the family of Usama bin Laden.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I don't know. I was talking to someone whose spouse still worked there. We mentioned the lawsuit (peripherally, not really wanting to bring it up since I figured it would be a sore subject).
They started talking about how IBM and Novel stole a whole bunch of their Intellectual Property and put it into Linux, and how Linux is nothing but a bunch a thieves.
I just sat there biting my tongue and changed the subject quickly, but it was really odd talking to someone "on the other side of the fence" who was a developer, and not in management.
Actually, the Carlyle Group is mostly Bush and bin Laden money, or at least it used to be. Sort of makes you wonder who might actually be doing what, and what's at stake...
Especially considering Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, is on the board of the Carlyle Group. That's a bit of a WTF moment right there...
A 'pure' free market does not refer to a lack of regulation, but a market in which the government enjoys no special privilege over private enterprise. The logical conclusion of such a system would result in privatized police forces, fire companies, etc. competing on equal terms with the analogous government entities. Both government and private enterprise would still be subject to regulation.
Consequently, capitalist arguments against anti-trust laws are not inherent to capitalism in general, but are made from the position that that class of regulation does not result in a more productive economy. In contrast, regulations that capitalists generally consider to be necessary for a healthy free market economy would be contract law and property law. Then it *is* capitalism at work by its very definition. Why do you think you need anti-trust laws but because growing monopolies is a known ill-effect of capitalism in action? No. The existence of anti-trust laws does not provide an argument either for or against the efficacy of capitalist free markets, as there is nothing anti (or pro) capitalist about them. I don't think I need to say anything about the relationship between predatory behaviour and capitalism, do I? Predatory behavior is alive and well in all socio-economic systems. They simply provide different mechanisms by which one becomes either predator or prey.