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iSoft says yes to IBA takeover bid
After almost a year of uncertainty for IBA Health, iSoft's shareholders have "overwhelmingly" approved the Australian e-health group's �166m takeover offer. The deal offers iSoft shareholders 69p cash for each share, representing a 23 percent premium on iSoft's closing mid-market share price on 16 October, according to IBA.
Investment company Allco Equity Partners (AEP) also announced it will support IBA with AU$300m (�131m) for a combination of shares and convertible notes which are to be issued by IBA.
To help refinance some of iSoft's debt and for working capital expenses, AEP will commit a further AU$62m (�27m). However, the final amount is contingent on whether iSoft shareholders decide to take cash or IBA shares.
Besides facing rising interest payments on its �93m debt, it was reported that iSoft had been struggling to fulfil its contract to supply the Lorenzo system as part of the NHS's National Programme for IT (NPfIT). More>>
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Persistence pays off in pursuit of cash to fill pension gap
Thank you for your help. The Financial Ombudsman Service has confirmed my basic claim and forced Sesame to pay some £10,500. PL, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire Your claim revolved around taking retirement benefits from your company scheme. You wanted to retire from your position as a director in May, 2003. An adviser from the Sesame network went through an open market option investigation but the pension was not arranged until October of that year. I took this up for you but Sesame did not make good your loss. I urged you to take the matter to the Ombudsman, which you did. The first adjudicator sided with Sesame. Then you asked for it to go to appeal by the Ombudsman, an option which not everyone is aware of. In this instance the Ombudsman felt the issue was finely balanced but overruled the adjudicator on the grounds that the adviser had good notice to process the pension. More>>
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Onaro Launches New Products to Support the Virtualized Data Center
Onaro, Inc. (http://www.onaro.com), the leader in data center automation for storage, announced today new solutions to extend its support for the virtualized data center and further integrate storage with IT operations. The adoption of server and storage virtualization by large enterprises has created new challenges integrating networked storage into the balance of IT operations. New and updated products in the SANscreen product family are designed to meet this challenge by providing end-to-end service visibility for both physical and virtual servers across SAN and now also NAS networked storage environments.
While server and storage virtualization are being deployed to reduce costs, each of these technologies adds management challenges for data center teams. Server virtualization requires cross domain optimization of both the server and storage environment to maximize cost savings and ensure service levels are met. More>>