|
Wyly fights for CA
|
 |
June 25, 2001: 4:18 p.m. ET
Swiss billionaire supports management but Wyly-led group presses on
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The verbal battle between billionaire Sam Wyly and Computer Associates International escalated Monday as Wyly continued his fight to gain control of the troubled software maker.
Computer Associates publicized the support of its largest shareholder, Swiss billionaire Walter Haefner, as a way to intimidate other shareholders from casting their votes against CA's "inept management," Wyly said Monday.
"It is exactly this kind of autocratic attitude that has caused management to ignore and abuse all CA shareholders by destroying shareholder value over the past five years," he said.
Last week, a Dallas-based investor group led by Wyly initiated a proxy solicitation of Computer Associates stockholders in order to take control of the company.
The investor group plans to nominate a slate of board replacements at CA's annual meeting on Aug. 29. The group is also pitching a restructuring plan that would split the company into four divisions – storage management, security management, systems management and knowledge management – that could later be spun off.
Computer Associates' largest shareholder, Walter Haefner, who holds a 21 percent stake, pledged his support late last week for Computer Associates and its management.
But Ranger Governance, the investment group led by Wyly, vowed to press on.
"Sam believes he can persuade many of the institutions to work with him," a Ranger Governance spokeswoman said Monday. "It would be nice to have Walter but we don't need it. We would welcome his support at a later date."
Wyly, who himself holds a less than 1 percent stake in CA, said Haefner's holdings in CA come from his investment in University Computing, which he sold to CA in 1987. Computer Associates also bought another Wyly company, Sterling Software, for about $4 billion in stock last year.
Wyly has pledged to serve as CA's chairman if his slate wins.
Shares for Computer Associates have dropped more than 40 percent from their 52-week high of $54.43 but news of the proxy battle has had little effect on shares for Computer Associates, (CA: up $0.15 to $32.00, Research, Estimates) which gained nominally Monday.
Computer Associates, founded by billionaire Charles Wang in 1976, has suffered along with most technology firms in the current economic downturn. Last month, Computer Associates reported a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss of $410 million on revenue that fell more than 61 percent from the same quarter a year ago.
Islandia, N.Y.-based Computer Associates, the world's No. 3 independent software company behind Oracle and Microsoft, sells a broad range of enterprise systems management, storage management, and database software to corporate customers.
In a letter to CA shareholders last week, Wyly claimed a survey of CA's customer's believed the company's management to be "arrogant, dishonest and unscrupulous."
Computer Associates' management, Chairman Wang and CEO Sanjay Kumar, cater to Haefner and ignore its other shareholders. "Wang and Kumar have reported to him obediently at the end of each quarter—as if he were the Company's only shareholder—and they care little about all the other shareholders," Wyly said.
Computer Associates could not be reached for comment. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
