Merger talks between International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) have collapsed, ending, for now at least, IBM’s bid to acquire the multinational vendor of computers.
Sun’s board, headed by co-founder Scott McNealy, told IBM yesterday it was breaking off exclusive negotiations, prompting IBM to withdraw the bid, according to a person close to the negotiations. Sun rejected an offer of about $9.40 a share as too low, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. At that price, about $7 billion based on Sun’s shares outstanding, the purchase would be the biggest in IBM’s history.
Both companies had been in talks for more than three months. [via Bloomberg]
