Apple Buys HP Campus, Becomes Biggest Landowner In Cupertino

PC giant Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has found a buyer for its decades-old campus in Cupertino, California, and it is none other than Apple.

With this land acquisition, Apple becomes the largest landowner in Cupertino, but it has not announced any plans for the new land.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, which is planning to expand its base of operations in Silicon Valley, has bought the 98-acre campus that lies close to a 50-acre property purchased by Apple in 2006 and is about five minutes' drive from Apple headquarters.

Apple, which reported fourth-quarter profit of $4.31 billion on revenue of $20.34 billion, needs more land as it is growing its workforce as fast as the sales of its iPhones and iPads. According to the company's latest quarterly report, it employs 46,600 people.

We now occupy 57 buildings in Cupertino and our campus is bursting at the seams, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told the Mercury News, which first reported the story. These offices will give us more space for our employees as we continue to grow.

Previously, Hewlett-Packard had used the campus for around 20 years before it abandoned the office complex during the summer of 2010 to consolidate its business operations in the nearby Palo Alto. HP plans to transfer several thousand workersto Palo Alto from Cupertino over the next two years.

Both Apple and HP have not disclosed the price of the deal, but real-estate experts are estimating that HP would have asked for about $300 million or more. However, experts say that a sluggish economy and a weak real-estate market would have helped Apple in getting a better deal.