Deutsche Dragged Into HP Fight

10 years ago

Walter Hewlett has filed a complaint in the Delaware Chancery Court that alleges that officials at Hewlett Packard (HP)used 'corporate assets to entice and coerce' Deutsche Bank to vote in favour of the highly contested merger between Hewlett and Compaq.

Mr Hewlett, son of one of the co-founders of HP, is leading the charge against the proposed merger. The votes of HP shareholders were counted last week and the merger plans were approved.

Deutsche Asset Management owns around 25 million HP shares and was thought to be lining up to vote against the merger with Compaq. At the last moment, the fund manager changed its mind and voted for the plan. Mr Hewlett is now claiming that HP executives threatened Deutsche that it would be left out of potentially lucrative company investment banking business in the future unless it supported the board.

Deutsche have made no comment about the lawsuit.

Shareholders in Compaq approved the deal by a margin of 9-to-1.

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