"Shareholders are voting with their feet," said John Waterman, managing director at Rittenhouse Financial Services, which sold its entire Hewlett-Packard stake of 7.62 million shares before the purchase announcement.
Shareholders are now voicing some of the same concerns raised when Hewlett-Packard was considering the Pricewaterhouse acquisition: the tough and lengthy integration process and the payoff from making such a huge acquisition.
As part of the agreement, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard have each said they would pay a US$675 million break-up fee for ending the agreement. If investors continue to balk, Katz said the two may decide to drop that fee and just walk away.
Still, the Compaq purchase is already further along than Pricewaterhouse ever got. Both boards unanimously approved this purchase.
That leaves Fiorina and Capellas with a lot of work to do, promoting benefits that shareholders say are hard to discern.
"They have a window to really convince the Street that there is something here," said Waterman.
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