● 05.22.11

●● Novell’s Takeover Smells Ever More Dodgy as Wizard Parent LLC Provides Shady Financing

Posted in Finance, Microsoft, Novell at 6:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Hundreds of millions involved in the Novell deal, which is tied to some secretive entity called Wizard Parent LLC

NOVELL is history, but part of its history involves the case against Microsoft, which the Microsoft boosters spin upon antitrust scrutiny expiry (oversight ending). For instance:

Some issues may still live on concerning Microsoft’s past competition practices. An appeals court this month cleared the way for Novell (newly acquired by Attachmate Corp.) to sue Microsoft over antitrust claims associated with WordPerfect, which Novell owned in 1994. Novell’s complaints are associated with the use of the operating system market control to exclude applications, as well as allegations that exclusionary agreements were in place with original equipment manufacturers, hurting WordPerfect distribution and helping Microsoft Word.

We hope that AttachMSFT will carry on with this case. There is fishy stuff going on and the acquisition of Novell turns out to be even more bizarre. As John Cook from Seattle put it and reminded us, the secretive companies behind the acquisition (run by a bison slayer, who was previously arrested] had to take a loan and spoke to Elliot even before Elliot made the bid for Novell and put it on sale. We wrote some more about Elliot in posts such as:

Novell May be Going Private, Hedge Fund Has CashAnalyst Expects Microsoft Bid to Buy NovellRon Hovsepian Receives Another Large Lump of Cash as Novell Sale LoomsGNU/Linux-Savvy Writers View Elliot Associates as Bad NeighbourhoodFirm Behind Novell Bid Has Shady Past, Could be Tied to Microsoft (Paul E. Singer’s ‘Vulture Fund’)Simon Phipps: “Seems Even With Microsoft’s Support Novell Couldn’t Cut It”Vulture Fund Still the Only Bidder for NovellPaul Singer Still Goes After NovellWith Novell up for Sale, Novell Products Become Too Risky to BuyNovell for SaleReuters: “Novell Has Put Itself up for Sale”Novell Might be Sold This MonthSUSE, OpenSUSE, and Why AttachMSFT Won’t Care

Here is what seems too strange about the deal, in addition to the involvement of that vulture, Paul Singer.

Attachmate is one of Seattle’s oldest software companies, with a history stretching back to the early 1980s. But did you know that it operates under the name of Wizard Parent LLC? We didn’t, and now that entity has appeared in a recent SEC filing as having raised $377 million.Why? A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that Wizard Parent owns The Attachmate Group, but she declined to offer details about the financing.It appears that the money is tied to Attachmate’s acquisition of Novell, a deal which was first announced last November and closed late last month. On April 27th, Attachmate published a short two paragraph press release about its acquisition of Novell.

The company which put Novell on sale is a group of thugs who use financial instruments to coerce others. There is a lot of history there. Maureen O’Gara, the SCO fan, says that Elliot has a new victim to prey on:

The acquisition should close in 45-60 days. Iron Mountain is under pressure from Elliott Associates, one of its shareholders famous these days for its role in putting Novell in play, to get out of the information storage business and into real estate. The assets being sold were at best breaking even.

It is sad that such companies are allowed to operate. They offer nothing to society and they monetise destruction. We might never know just what really happened to make Novell a goner. There has been too much secrecy and back-room negotiations. One might say that Elliot conspired with someone to sell Novell cheaply while making a big profit, dissolving some of Novell’s efforts in the process. Will the legal cases against SCO and Microsoft still be pursued? We foresaw such a problem 4 years ago. █

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