Despite an eleventh hour attempt by a dissident shareholder group,
shareholders overwhelmingly approved Corel’s plan to be taken over by Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm.
Corel’s management and board of directors recommended the deal to
shareholders, before the voting on Wednesday. Eighty percent of shareholders
voted in favor of the measure. Published reports called the vote
“rancorous,” as several dissident shareholders spoke up about their
displeasure with the management and board’s decision to go forward with
Vector offer.
While Corel is best known for its WordPerfect word processing and CorelDraw
graphics software packages, the company has struggled against its
competitors.
The deal could close within the next few days. On Thursday, a Canadian court
is expected to review the terms of the deal.
Vector offered Corel $1.05 for each share of the company, as recently as
March the stock was trading at 74 cents.
What is not clear is whether Vector will change the top management of Corel,
or perhaps make deeper job cuts. Corel has close to 730 employees, mostly
based in Ottawa. The company has been posting significant losses and made
several major job cuts over the past few years.
Corel’s founder Michael Cowpland and a group of dissident shareholders known
as the Corel Rescue team did not want the deal to be concluded. The current
management and board of directors originally told shareholders they would
recommend a bid of at least $1.10 a share, but later backpedaled and
accepted Vector’s $1.05 offer.
Corel’s reputation became tainted, after Cowpland was forced to resign and
charged in 1999 with three counts of violating securities law for trades
conducted in 1997.
Vector now controls at least 20 percent of all Corel shares, making it the
At the shareholder vote in Ottawa on Wednesday, there are published reports
company’s biggest shareholder. Corel is the latest addition to Vector’s
portfolio of technology companies, which now includes RealNetworks , Savi Technologies and LANDesk Software Inc. The closure of
the takeover will complete the process of taking Corel private, and thus,
removing the stock from both the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange.
If the court approves the deal, Corel Rescue has said it may file suit in
Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa in its attempt to overturn the results of
the shareholder vote.
of investors shouting at board members. The board defending its support of
the Vector takeover offer said that its choices were vetted by both CIBC
World Markets Inc. and KPMG.
