Chuck writes:

> Bank of America announced today, according to Yahoo finance and
>  Dow Jones that they are voting against merger.  They now join CalPERS
>  against it.

Actually, a fair number of institutional investors -- Interex excluded, of
course -- are coming out against the merger. Of interest, many of these
organizations are subscribers to ISS, the consulting organization that issued
its support for the merger, are ignoring its advice. Yesterday, Reuters wrote:

========================================

NEW YORK, March 12 (Reuters) - One of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s 50 biggest
shareholders told Reuters on Tuesday it would vote its stake against the
merger with Compaq Computer Corp., but would leave its investors, who control
the bulk of the shares in the firm's name, to make their own decisions.

The institution, which requested anonymity, said it soon would inform
investors how it was voting its own stake -- about one-quarter of 1 percent
of HP -- but would not advise them on what to do.

The firm only can vote a small portion of the shares held in its name because
of the way the institution is run.

"The feeling here is that it'll be dilutive to earnings going forward," a
spokesman from the firm said of the $22 billion deal.

The firm, which has no plans to publicly disclose its position on the deal,
also said it saw integration problems between the two computer companies and
agreed with dissident board member Walter Hewlett that the combined company
would rely too heavily on the sale of personal computers.

"The other thing that we see is that there will be significant integration
issues," the firm's spokesman said.

HP argues that the deal will create a one-stop-shopping technology source
that can compete with International Business Machines Corp.

In addition to HP's founding families, the California Public Employees
Retirement System, or Calpers, Brandes Investment Partners, Wells Fargo & Co.
and the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund have all come out against the deal."

========================================

Wirt Atmar

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