With Ask Group Inc shares at $8.375 – down from a 12-month high of $28 and change, and the whole company valued at only $160m or so, which buys over $400m of annual sales, the manufacturing software and relational database company looks like the bargain of the year – yet no-one seems to be buying: there is very little to protect incumbent management, with employees worried about their jobs even without an acquisition, and with little prospect of making any money on their share options at these low, low prices; Electronic Data Systems Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co sat on their hands when the company passed round the hat for share options for new officers and invited the major shareholders to top up their holdings to maintain their positions, and instead allowed themselves to be diluted to 18% and 9% respectively; they bought their shares at about $10.70, so a bid of only $13 to $14 a share would be enough to enable them to wash their faces on the very indifferent investment.
