June 4th, 2007
Bono Buys a Piece of Palm
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Well, not personally … but still … the private equity firm Elevation Partners LP today bought a 25% stake in Palm, and Bono is one of the 5 partners. This deal happened after all the earlier speculation that Motorola or Nokia were going to acquire Palm.
The recapitalization plan will see Elevation take a 25% equity stake in Palm, valuing the company at $8.50 per share, a premium of around 16% compared with the stock’s performance over the past 10 trading days. Elevation is a $1.9 billion private equity firm, and one of its five partners is Bono, the lead singer of Irish rock band U2. The investment in Palm is by far the largest the firm has made. Source: ComputerWorld
We Say: Now, don’t get any ideas about our panning of the Foleo a few days ago having anything to do with this. However, it is notable that Jon Rubenstein, former head of Apple’s iPod division will become executive chairman of Palm’s board, as well as heading up product development. This could be the start of a much brighter future for Palm.
The Hot Iron says:
Palm Elevated to the Next Level…
Is it getting better for Palm? Apparently so, as today it was announced that the mobile device manufacturer sold a 25% stake in itself to Elevation Partners, a private equity firm who counts as one of its partners Bono, the lead singer of U2. This anno…
June 4th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Bill King says:
Daft daft daft. They’re playing a very nice game of too little too late. They’re trying to catchup to where we are currently now, several years of development time later. Good luck to them, they’ve got a long climb ahead.
June 4th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
» Palm Hit with Layoffs » Blog Archive Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech says:
[…] Not unexpected, with the fortunes of Palm on the wane, but I’m sure that there was hope around Palm that the recent infusion of cash by Elevation Partners LP might have reduced the odds of this. On the other hand, the private equity firm might have asked for it. The job cuts, which occurred Thursday, affected “a small percentage” of Palm’s approximately 1,200 employees and were concentrated in the company’s development group, according to a company spokesman. They primarily affected Palm employees in the U.S., he added. Source: ComputerWorld […]
June 15th, 2007 at 8:51 am