A lot has changed in those 12 months at Detroit-based Compuware — including a shake-up of the board, employee layoffs and severed ties and bitter public feuds with its co-founder, Peter Karmanos Jr.
Yet the company’s future remains very much uncertain. Despite numerous changes made to please shareholders and activist investors, there is still the possibility thatCompuware could soon be snapped up by an out-of-state hedge fund or private equity firm.
If Compuware is sold, more jobs could be cut, management could be replaced and its Detroit headquarters — which spurred downtown’s revitalization — could be eliminated or shrunk.
“If that means breaking it up, throwing the pieces into the wind and eliminating a company in Detroit, they don’t mind that,” Karmanos warned earlier this year in an interview.
A maker of business software and mainframe computer services, Compuware has been undertaking a corporate restructuring and fielding potential buyout offers since late January, when its board of directors rejected as too low the surprise Dec. 17 takeover bid of $11-per-share, or $2.3 billion, which at the time represented more than a 15% premium on the company’s stock price.