Hewlett-Packard Sets March 19 Merger Vote

Compaq will hold its meeting a day later, the companies said in regulatory filings.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Monday said the company has enough support to win the battle, drawing a harsh rebuttal from chief opponent Walter Hewlett, a son of co-founder Bill Hewlett, who has mustered founding families against the $23 billion deal.

Hewlett-Packard and Compaq said when they announced the deal in September that they expected it to close in the first half of 2002.

"I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone that we are, in fact, on plan," Compaq spokesman Arch Currid said Tuesday.

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Both companies have exceeded Wall Street expectations in recent quarters, with Hewlett-Packard announcing Monday that its profits for its fiscal first quarter ended in January would be substantially above estimates.

Walter Hewlett says Fiorina was wrong in predicting she had more votes than opponents of the merger. Hewlett, a dissident director, has spearheaded an effort that has lined up the founding families and their 18 percent bloc of HP's shares against the merger.

Hewlett-Packard shares fell 34 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $21.70, while Compaq lost 13 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $12.07 on the New York Stock Exchange after the announcement.

So far there is no consensus on which way the vote is likely to go, Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff says.

"I think it is too hard to call," Neff says.

Hewlett-Packard and Compaq say their results proved management could successfully merge the companies, creating a high-end computer and services powerhouse that can serve almost all customers' technology needs,

Walter Hewlett, however, says Hewlett-Packard had proven last quarter that it could do well on its own by focusing on its strengths, such as its valuable printing franchise.

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