Tag Archives: Qatalyst
Bloomberg: Palm Is For Sale
Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) is for sale according to a report by Bloomberg according to three separate sources. Palm is reportedly working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer. As of right now Palm has a market cap of about $1 billion.
Although a sale has not been announced, rumor has it that HTC Corporation and Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at making offers. If someone buys Palm, then they would have access to the WebOS software. Elevation Partners LP owns 30% of Palm.
Palm was founded in 1992 and launched a device called the PalmPilot. Palm was bought by U.S. Robotics. U.S. Robotis was acquired by 3Com Corporation and then Palm was spun off again in 2000. This past year Palm was highly depending on the success of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi devices, but they have struggled to compete against Apple iPhones, Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, Google Android, Nokia, etc. [Bloomberg]
Google’s Muscle, Frank P. Quattron Spots Eric Schmidt
Frank P. Quattron has had somewhat of a tumultuous history. While the former Credit Suisse First Boston executive has earned over $200 million, he sent an e-mail to employees recommending to delete e-mails related to the buying of promising IPO stocks.
Despite wrongdoings, Quattron is back and advising the fastest growing search engine company through his company, Qatalyst. As Microsoft and Yahoo! are disagreeing over an acquisition price, Google has been brought into the mix to help Yahoo! out with advertisement outsourcing.
Quattron has been with Google since the beginning. In the late 90′s when Google was developing, Quattron was one of the first investment bankers to meet with them. Quattron was even hired to advise the company when it filed for it’s IPO in 2004 around the same time he was convicted.
Google also has an interest in Yahoo!’s discussion to merge with AOL since Google controls $1 billion worth of the Internet pioneer company. If the Google and Yahoo! ad outsourcing deal works out, Yahoo! may not agree to Microsoft’s offer.
Information Source:
[1] The New York Times Dealbook: Google C.E.O. Taps Quattrone as Adviser in Yahoo Battle by Andrew Ross Sorkin
[2] New York Magazine: Stock-Market Clash by Henry Blodget