Elliott Raises Bid for Riverbed to $3.3 Billion

The banks are buzzing with billions, as mergers and acquisition activity in the technology sector continues to accelerate. Elliot Management has raised its bid for Riverbed to $3.3 billion, and Intel invests in big data and cloud companies in China.  All recent deals put together would still not total the massive deal last week, with Facebook (FB) acquiring mobile messaging company WhatsApp for $16 billion.

Elliott raises Riverbed bid to $3.3 billion

The New York Times reports that hedge fund Elliott Management has raised its bid for Riverbed Technology to more than $3.3 billion, and continued to criticize Riverbed for failing to begin a process to sell itself. In January Elliott offered approximately $3 billion,with a written letter to either accept its buyout offer, or to seek other offers. The new offer raises January's $19 per share offer to $21 a share, after Riverbed turned down the initial offer, saying it was inadequate. Riverbed’s continued resistance to Elliott stands in contrast to Juniper Networks, which announced  a new integrated operating plan last week in response to Elliott.

“We believe shareholders, the actual owners of the company, should be outraged by the board’s behavior,” Jesse Cohn, the Elliott portfolio manager leading the campaign, wrote. “This behavior is inconsistent with the fiduciary responsibilities of a public company board, whose obligation is to maximize value for stockholders.” Riverbed said in a statement that it is considering Elliott’s new proposal. The company added that it is focused on its own turnaround strategy and is still open to buying back shares to bolster its stock price.

Intel Capital invests in mobile and cloud.  Intel Capital announced that RF Solution provider Newlans has closed $15 million in Series B funding to accelerate the company’s development and commercialization of its Programmable Duplexer targeting front end radio frequency modules for 4G LTE mobile devices and small cells.

“Newlans is pioneering new approaches to RF front end tuning,” said Stefan Wolff, Vice President, Intel’s Platform Engineering Group & COO of Intel’s Wireless Platform R&D. “They are truly redefining the way RF filtering is being implemented and we are pleased to see them apply this disruptive technology to mobile devices. We look forward to working together with Newlans to commercialize this critical technology.”

Last week Intel Capital announced investments in big data company Shanghai Yeapoo Information Technology, network storage provider BlueWhale, and China Cloud - a leading Chinese cloud infrastructure operator. “We’re proud to support BlueWhale, China Cloud and Yeapoo as they shape the cloud computing and big data ecosystems in China,” said Arvind Sodhani, executive vice president of Intel and president of Intel Capital. “Each company has demonstrated early success and we’re looking forward to helping them grow.”