There was something a bit gung-ho about Kevin Loosemore when asked about his ambitious £6.5 billion acquisition of Hewlett Packard’s enterprise software business 16 months ago. It was, he implied, just a larger replica of all the other deals he had successfully pushed through as executive chairman of Micro Focus over the years. Today, that airy claim is looking premature at best, if not downright complacent. The integration has led to delays in the return to revenue growth, while the move to HP’s new platform is proving “more challenging than anticipated”. Cue yesterday’s 17 per cent plunge in the Micro Focus share price, which wiped £1 billion from the company’s value — a fall exacerbated because…

Source: The Times January 09, 2018 00:05 UTC