Wall Street Beat: M&A news kicks off new year

Echoing 2005, a big year for mergers and acquisitions, the first week of trading in the new year brought acquisition news and rumors that moved tech company shares.

On Thursday CA Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, announced it would buy Wily Technology for $375 million. CA said application management software vendor Wily will bolster its own management software products. CA executives said Wily has expertise in developers’ issues, while industry observers noted Wily has a solid sales team. CA shares (ticker symbol, CA) ticked up by $0.05 to close Thursday at $28.37 on the news.

Also on Thursday, Computer Sciences Corp. shares (CSC) rose by $3.99 to close at $54.81 after The Wall Street Journal reported that Blackstone Group and Hewlett-Packard are in discussions to buy the computer outsourcing services company. However, the newspaper reported that the buyout could fall apart over issues about how to structure the deal.

Meanwhile, impending delisting didn’t stop Mercury Interactive’s shares from gaining slightly in their final day of trading on the Nasdaq exchange this week.

Software maker Mercury, which is delinquent in filing timely financial reports in the wake of an accounting fiasco, said Tuesday that its shares would be dropped from trading on Nasdaq the next day. Its stock closed up $0.09, at $27.88. Mercury (MERQ) now trades on the Pink Sheets, a quotation system that tracks over-the-counter securities. Its shares ended there at $28.95 on Thursday. Company officials say they plan to straighten out their financial mess, bring their reports into compliance and reapply for their Nasdaq listing.

Another tech company that fell into the Pink Sheets after an accounting disaster, asset performance management software maker Datastream Systems, gained after Infor Global Systems swooped in to acquire the distressed company. Privately held Infor said on Thursday it has agreed to pay $10.26 per share in cash for Datastream, a 14 percent premium on Datastream’s Wednesday closing price of $8.79. Datastream shares (DSTM.PK) jumped to end Thursday trading at $9.87.

Microsoft’s billionaire founder Bill Gates diversified his portfolio by picking up several hundred shares of Berkshire Hathaway’s famously expensive stock. The holding company of investment icon Warren Buffett ended Thursday with its thinly traded shares (BRK-A) priced at $89,800 on the New York Stock Exchange. In the last two weeks of 2005, Gates spent more than $30 million acquiring 340 shares of Berkshire Hathaway at prices ranging from $88,350 to $89,100, Reuters reported this week.