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United Tech Bids $2.6B for Diebold

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the how-much-does-an-election-cost dept.

zhang1983 writes "United Technologies, parent company of jet engine-maker Pratt & Whitney, Otis elevator and Sikorsky Aircraft, said it made the unsolicited offer to Diebold for $2.63 billion on Friday after trying to negotiate a deal for two years. United Technologies said the company announced the offer Sunday night because executives believe their offer is "so compelling we thought shareholders should know about it.""

5 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Shady elections are one thing... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Interesting
    but the real money is in stocks

    I'm not saying anyone did, but an insider would be up 65% plus on the buyout bid news this morning...

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:Shady elections are one thing... by jc42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sure, but this is way too much of a honeypot to even think you could get away with any shinangans.

      How so? The Diebold electronic-voting scandal has been with us for about a decode now, and I don't seem to have read of any indictments. Even Wally O'Dell's infamous promise in writing to deliver Ohio to the Republican got no obvious attention from the legal system. There don't seem to be much more than a few small-scale, local investigations so far, and the Justice Dept seems supremely uninterested in the topic.

      I'd bet (and a lot of investors will bet) that they'll continue to get away with it for a very long time. After all, the people in a position to investigate them are working for politicians, many of whom were elected with the help of Diebold equipment. And there are preliminary reports that Diebold has branched out to helping Democrats in the current primaries.

      Maybe the investigators are just managing to keep a really low profile. But a better bet would be that they aren't doing much serious investigating at all.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  2. Re:It's probably not about Premier Elections Syste by aldousd666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd agree with you. But you can't mean what I think you do or that would mean I was seeing someone who knows something about economics, for real, from facts, not from feelings or beliefs, on Slashdot. That just can't be. So should I laugh instead?

    --
    Speak for yourself.
  3. Hostile Takeover by deacent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I actually read about this in my local paper Hartford Courant this morning. I don't think the CNN article really does a good job indicating the "hostile" in this hostile takeover. Note the part where Laurer directed UTC not to have further contact with board members.

    My impression is that UTC has been getting more heavily into security over the last several years and they are probably more interested the ATM/check machine aspect of Diebold, in spite of Diebold's entanglements with voting machines.

  4. M.I.C. + voting machine ownership = fascist state by BardBollocks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's all the US needs - overt ownership of election tallying systems by part of the Military Industrial Complex. Yeah, I am sure that the United States should look forward to an era of peace and prosperity.. >:|