
EMC Corp. has blinked in its ongoing stare down of acquisition target Data Domain Inc., bumping its offer to acquire all the outstanding common stock of Data Domain (Nasdaq: DDUP) to $33.50 per share in cash, or about $2.1 billion, up from its previous $1.8 billion offer.
The new offer price comes after weeks of EMC (NYSE: EMC) stating to the board of directors and shareholders of California-based Data Domain that its all-cash offer was better than the $1.9 billion stock-and-cash proposal from NetApp Inc., which is also aiming to buy Data Domain.
To sweeten the deal, EMC says it has removed all deal protection provisions from the proposal. According to officials, EMC is ready to close the transaction within two weeks, which is almost a month faster than the NetApp proposal. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has already granted EMC early termination of the antitrust waiting period, officials said.
After EMC chairman, president and CEO Joseph Tucci sent a letter to Data Domain president and CEO Frank Slootman expressing disappointment at not receiving early notice of a possible sale to NetApps, the Hopkinton-based company then offered its own bid, 20 percent higher than NetApps’ original offer. EMC’s bid then prompted NetApps to increase its own offer to surpass just slightly the amount of EMC’s bid.
EMC reported a profit for 2008 of $1.3 billion on revenue of $14.8 billion.







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