Compaq

Compaq Computer Corporation was an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard. The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers. The name "COMPAQ" was derived from "Compatibility and Quality", as at its formation Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it merged with Hewlett-Packard. Prior to its takeover the company was headquartered in northwest unincorporated Harris County, Texas, United States.

In 2001, Compaq engaged in a merger with Hewlett-Packard. Numerous large HP shareholders, including William Hewlett, publicly opposed the deal, which resulted in an impassioned public proxy battle between those for and against the deal.

The merger was approved only after the narrowest of margins, and allegations of vote buying (primarily involving an alleged last-second back-room deal with Deutsche Bank) haunted the new company.

It was subsequently disclosed that HP had retained Deutsche Bank's investment banking division in January 2002 to assist in the merger. HP had agreed to pay Deutsche Bank $1 million guaranteed, and another $1 million contingent upon approval of the merger. On August 19, 2003, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission charged Deutsche Bank with failing to disclose a material conflict of interest in its voting of client proxies for the merger and imposed a civil penalty of $750,000. Deutsche Bank consented without admitting or denying the findings.[8]

Before the merger, Compaq's ticker symbol was CPQ. This was melded with Hewlett-Packard's previous symbol (HWP) to create the current symbol of HPQ.

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