BNET Daily Dispatch: Alcoa, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, and Motorola
- Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum company, said today that it would make a hostile bid for Canada's Alcan Inc., estimated at $27 billion, after talks between the rivals stalled. If successful, the bid would create the world's largest producer of the metal that is used to make beverage cans, airplanes, and cars. Alcoa expects that a merger of the two companies would save it $1 billion per year after three years.
- Microsoft said today that Dell has joined a business collaboration it had with Novell to allow open-source Linux software to work with Windows. Dell is the first major systems provider to join the Microsoft-Novell collaboration, which consists of a broad set of business and technological agreements to make their products work together better to serve corporate customers using both Linux and Windows computer servers.
- ABN AMRO rejected a $24.5 billion offer for its U.S. bank LaSalle from a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland. ABN rejected the bid because the offer was not superior to Bank of America's deal to buy LaSalle for $21 billion, and because it was conditional on the group acquiring all of the ABN group and carried execution risks.
- Shareholder activist Carl Icahn is gaining support for his campaign to win a seat on Motorola board. Motorola shareholders including Legg Mason's ClearBridge Advisors and Kelmoore Investment are backing Ichan because they want him to rejuvenate the company's sales and boost its share price. Stockholders will vote today to determine whether Icahn will get a seat on the board.