Adobe Rejects Quark Buyout Offer -- Last week Quark, Inc. made public its desire to purchase Adobe Systems, Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The privately held Quark made an offer to Adobe management, although Adobe claims that Quark did not make a bona fide offer, but sent only "unsolicited letters." [I wonder if that counts as spam? -Adam] Adobe refused Quark's advances, and Quark is now hoping to open a new dialog with Adobe or pursue the possibility of a hostile takeover. Although Adobe is much larger - with 1997 revenues of $911.9 million compared to Quark's $200 million - its stock is at a yearly low, and the company is undergoing restructuring. Quark, maker of the desktop publishing application QuarkXPress, said that it would likely divest Adobe of PageMaker, QuarkXPress's main competition, as well as other products that could raise flags with industry regulators. [JLC]

<http://www.quark.com/about/itn064.html>
<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/publicrelations /HTML/9808/980826.offer.html>