Bull shares rise on Hewlett-Packard bid report

PARIS, July 26 (Reuters) - Shares in Bull BULP.PA rose over 10 percent on Thursday after an online report of French weekly capital.fr said U.S. computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) was preparing a 720 million euro ($994.3 million) bid.

In June, the French computer services provider said it did not rule out linking up with another company to speed up its development.

Bull's investor relations department declined to comment on the report, while no-one at its press relations unit was available for comment.

By 0734 GMT, Bull shares were up 8.89 percent at 6 euros, valuing the business at 533 million euros ($736.1 million).

Capital.fr said HP had retained Morgan Stanley and Freshfields as advisers for the deal, and HP planned to table its offer in early August, which would come at 7.5 euros a share.

((Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt and Jean-Michel Belot, editing by Will Waterman; Paris Equities, astrid.wendlandt@reuters.com, +33 1 49 49 54 40))

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