PW struggles in Origin talks
Price Waterhouse was rebuffed last week in its effort to acquire a minority stake in Origin, the computer services subsidiary of Philips, the Dutch electronics conglomerate.
A joint announcement last Friday said both sides could not agree terms after four months of negotiations. PW’s consulting wing has worked in alliance with Origin for the past year and will continue to do so.
PW proposed the Origin investment after its merger with Coopers was announced.
‘If Coopers was a factor, that would have been evaluated in this round of talks,’ a spokeswoman for the firm said.
Origin UK managing director David Todd added: ‘There would be a certain amount of discontinuity while the merger goes through, but potentially it could work to our advantage. There is some overlap in the area of enterprise resource planning software such as SAP, where we have stronger programming and technical skills.’