HP completes Autonomy acquisition for £6.6bn

HP has completed its acquisition of Autonomy after the UK software firm's shareholders agreed to a £25.50 per share cash offer worth £6.6bn.

The offer represents a 79 per cent premium on Autonomy's current stock price, as the original bid was made on 18 August by recently ousted HP chief executive Léo Apotheker.

Apotheker's offer ultimately led to his being fired by HP's board for overvaluing Autonomy.

Oracle has since claimed that it turned down an offer to buy Autonomy before the firm had pitched to HP because the asking price was too high. However, Autonomy has denied ever trying to sell to Oracle.

Autonomy is based in Cambridge, and specialises in platforms to help enterprises categorise and manage unstructured data. The company is particularly focused on the e-discovery, search and archiving markets.

HP's new chief executive Meg Whitman said in a statement that the Autonomy purchase will strengthen its data analytics, cloud, industry and workflow management capabilities.

"The exploding growth of unstructured and structured data and unlocking its value is the single largest opportunity for consumers, businesses and governments," she said.

"Autonomy significantly increases our capabilities to manage and extract meaning from that data to drive insight, foresight and better decision making."

Autonomy will operate as a separate business unit, and founder and chief executive Mike Lynch will continue to lead the company's direction.