IBM Corp clearly prefers to pay top dollar rather than brook any competition or dissent when it makes an acquisition, so it has agreed to offer $47.50 a share cash for Tivoli Systems Inc and its Tivoli Management Environment, putting a pricey valuation of $743m on the company – after stripping out Tivoli’s cash. That for a company that did $2.2m net on sales of $50m in 1995 – albeit up 84% on 1994. The directors and officers of Austin, Texas-based Tivoli have agreed to sell their shares to IBM. IBM already uses the Tivoli Management Environment in SystemView. The market had clearly already got wind of the deal, because Tivoli shares had closed at $37.75, up $1.50, on Tuesday.
