When HPE announced Her intention to Acquisition of Juniper Networks For $14 billion in cold cash earlier this month, it was a bit of a shock. certainly, HP has already purchased Aruba In 2015, about $3 billion. Taking over another networking company would presumably add another layer to this business. Of course, there are always complications when merging one large organization into another, and HP doesn’t have the best track record of being one Smooth operator As it comes down to it over the years.
But surprisingly, companies have not positioned this conscious pairing as a pure network game. In fact, in a blog post Announcement of the dealRami Rahim, CEO of Juniper, suggested it has more to do with artificial intelligence. “This merger with HPE is expected to enable us to deliver more comprehensive, more competitive and truly end-to-end AI-first solutions,” he wrote.
No matter how you put it, the deal, which pays $40 per share, or a 32% premium to the closing price on January 8 (according to CNBC), represents the kind of offer that was difficult for Juniper to refuse. Assuming regulators don’t object — not a given these days — that deal could close later this year or early next. They give wiggle room for regulatory oversight.
Since the deal was announced on January 12, HPE investors have been lukewarm about it; That is, if the stock price is any indication of their sentiment. Consider that it’s January 8, Wall Street Journal Day I reported the news Since a deal between the two companies was imminent, the stock price remained at $17.72 per share. By January 12, when the deal was officially announced, the price had dropped to $15.89, and has been hovering there ever since, closing Thursday at $15.92, a decline of roughly 8% over the month. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
With a few weeks in the back view to digest this deal, we decided to look at what this was all about, and whether investors should be more positive about it. As you’ll see, companies think the numbers look pretty good, and they actually match up pretty well (as long as HPE doesn’t screw it up).
Is it really about artificial intelligence?
It’s hard to find anything in technology these days that doesn’t have an AI focus, so it should come as no surprise that companies are making AI the centerpiece of the deal. But is this really accurate?