Palm Gets Cash Infusion, Shakes Up Board

By Ed Oswald | Published June 4, 2007, 2:00 PM

Palm said Monday that it had received $325 million in funding from Bono's Elevation Partners, and would shuffle its board -- including the addition of a former iPod exec from Apple -- to make itself more competitive.

Shareholders will receive $9 per Palm share they own as part of the restructuring. In turn, two board members will resign and be replaced by the co-founders of the private equity firm making the strategic investment in the portable electronics maker.

Fred Anderson and Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners will replace Eric Benhamou and D. Scott Mercer. In addition, former Apple iPod chief Jon Rubenstein will join the board as its chairman, the company said.

Palm president and CEO Ed Colligan said Rubenstein will lead the company's product development, while bringing Anderson and McNamee on board would add new partners and relationships, as well as ensure a source of future investment capital.

"As a result of this transaction, we will strengthen the Palm leadership team and create a more effective capital structure, which puts us in a great position to attract new talent, significantly strengthen our execution capabilities, and deliver long-term shareholder value," he added.

Elevation will own approximately 25 percent of the company following the closing of the transaction. The move will likely also put to rest rumors of sale, which had begun to circulate in recent months.

Not everyone is buying into the company's positive spin on the deal, however. "This move while generate a lot of attention, isn't likely to save the company, despite what the new board does," technology pundit Om Malik wrote for GigaOm.

Comments

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Who in their right mind would give Palm money after last week's fiasco?

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So your argument is that because you don't like the foleo, that they shouldn't do this?

You speak as though you know that the foleo will be a failure and that you think that everyone is in agreement that the foleo is nothing new.

I'm actually going to be buying one when it comes out for a number of reasons: instant on(my biggest reason), fast phone sync, lightweight, flash based(instead of hard disk), full sized keys, long battery life, doesn't run windows, doesn't take forever to boot(but I'm repeating myself on that one), is linux based, and knowing palm, there's no question in my head that it's programmable so it'll be expandable to do things the makers would've never originally thought for it to do. All the benefits of a laptop without the constant nags that keep a laptop(for me) from being fully portable and accessible.

So you're deciding something is a failure before even trying it; before even the first review.

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