Computer Associates board candidate defends plan

NEW YORK: A proposed candidate for the board of Computer Associates

International Inc., who is part of a group seeking to toss out the present board

and overthrow the current management, defended his team's plan to divide the

company into four groups.

Steve Perkins, a member of a group engaged in a proxy fight for control of

the world's No. 4 software company, said the division is needed to serve

customers better.

"Only by decentralizing into more focused units can CA sales people get

close to enough to customers to respond to their needs and create value,"

Perkins said in a statement. Perkins and Texas billionaire Sam Wyly co-founded

Sterling Commerce and sold it last year to SBC Communications Inc. for $4

billion cash.

Wyly and his investment company Ranger Governance last week said they would

launch a proxy fight and ask stockholders attending the company's Aug. 29

shareholder meeting to vote out the present board and elect the group's proposed

slate.

The board would then jettison chairman Charles Wang and chief executive

Sanjay Kumar, both of whom the group said were responsible for the company's

lethargic stock price. Perkins was responding to comments Computer Associates

Chairman Charles Wang made that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Wang resumed business as usual, leaving for a 10-day

trip to Asia to meet with customers, a company representative said. CA also

announced it formed a strategic alliance in with Neusoft Group Ltd., one of

China's largest providers of services and software used by large corporations

and organizations. The alliance will broaden CA's presence in China.

Last year, Wang stepped down as CEO, to spend more time cultivating Asian

markets.

Wang said the plan put forth Wyly, his family investment company Ranger

Governance Ltd. and board candidates, was illogical, according to the article.

He said one of CA's strengths is that it can offer a broad portfolio of products

to solve a customer's problems.

Computer Associates make more than 800 software products that run on and

manage mainframes and computer networks.

In a meeting with analysts and investors this week, Wyly's group proposed

breaking the company into four groups: storage, security, systems and knowledge

management. He and his group maintain that sales people do not serve customers

well because they cannot be adequately knowledgeable about such a vast number of

products. The group also said it would consider spinning off those businesses to

unlock shareholder value.

Shares of Computer Associates on Thursday closed up 34 cents, or 0.66 per

cent, at $33.46.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.