Autonomy maintains it never tried to sell to Oracle

Autonomy has insisted that at no point did it try to sell the company to Oracle before HP made its successful offer of £7bn, despite claims to the contrary by Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison.

The UK software vendor has said that the sales meeting and PowerPoint slides Oracle has given as evidence of Autonomy's sales pitch are both false.

Oracle presented the sales slides to the press on Wednesday as evidence that Autonomy approached the firm before HP made its offer.

Oracle stated that Autonomy presented the slides during a sales meeting on 1 April, but that Oracle rejected Autonomy's offer because it was overvalued.

Autonomy has acknowledged that a meeting with Oracle executives took place on 1 April, but claims that it had nothing to do with a potential sale, and was simply an introduction to Oracle co-president Mark Hurd when he took up his new position after leaving HP.

"It was made clear that Autonomy was not for sale, and no sales process was under way. There has been no other contact with Oracle since then," said Autonomy in a statement.

The company suggested that investment banks may have independently recommended Autonomy as an acquisition target to industry players.

"This is standard practice, but this would not have been at our behest," the firm said.

Analyst firm Qatalyst has admitted that it prepared the PowerPoint slides sent to Oracle, but Autonomy insisted that "this is the first time we have seen them".

"Autonomy was not involved in this, nor was Qatalyst engaged by Autonomy until mid-year. Autonomy did not present these slides in the meeting," the firm said.

HP announced the acquisition of Autonomy for $10.3bn on 18 August.