In a Monday announcement, US computer bigwig Hewlett-Packard (HP) revealed that it has completed the $10.4billion (£6.7billion) acquisition of the British software firm Autonomy.

Confirming the acquisition, HP said that nearly 87.3 percent shareholders of Autonomy had accepted HP’s all-cash offer of £25.50 per share --- an offer that marks a 79 percent premium to the price in August when the take-over proceedings began.

In fact, with most of the big UK institutions that hold Autonomy shares having tendered their acceptances towards the end of last week, the markets had been speculating since Friday that the company’s acquisition by HP had been completed.

HP’s Autonomy acquisition – which comes close on the heels of the last-month departure of the HP CEO Leo Apotheker, who had initiated the deal – was a controversial, closely-watched deal which market analysts had disapproved of, on the grounds that the purchase price for Autonomy was too high.

But Apotheker’s successor Meg Whitman – the ex-head of eBay – had said shortly after her appointment as the new CEO that HP wpould go ahead with the Autonomy acquisition.

About the deal, Autonomy’s CEO Mike Lynch - who will assume a leading role in HP’s software unit - said that the acquisition had paved the way for Autonomy’s “fascinating new chapter” as part of a bigger, global corporation!