SCO has a buyer, pending bankruptcy approval

Embattled SCO Group is offering the bankruptcy court a deal it could be hard to refuse. The company has received an offer of $36 million from JGD Management for its business and intellectual property. JGD Management, a current debtor of SCO, is an investing arm of York Capital Management, which owned more than 91,000 shares of SCO stock from March 2005 to September 2006. 

The offer is for “assets relating to its Unix operating system, and certain related claims in litigation, as well as certain transfer, cross-license and related agreements pertaining to the Hipcheck product line and Me Inc. Mobile intellectual property owned by Me . . . all tangible personal property, supplies, computers, printers, equipment, furniture, fixtures, goods and other similar assets . . . all trade names, trademarks, service marks and service names relating to the Unix Business and . . . all customer and client lists, vendor lists, catalogues and data,” according to the filing.

The amount includes a cash payment of $10 million, $10 million to fund continuing litigation with Novell and IBM, $10 million or as much as a 20% interest in the event of a favorable judgment in litigation, and $6 million for SCO’s OEM agreement with Me, a mobile applications vendor.

The $36 million offer is subject to approval from the bankruptcy court by November 9, with transaction completion by December 7. In the filing, SCO said it would accept bids from other potential buyers. Both SCO and York Capital declined to comment.