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(Fixes spellng of "complementary" in paragraph 8)
By Krystal Hu and Greg Roumeliotis
Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.S. printer maker Xerox Holdings Corp is hosting a dinner for HP Inc shareholders this week as it seeks investor support to overcome the personal computer maker's resistance to its $35 billion takeover bid, according to people familiar with the matter.
The charm offensive comes after Xerox raised its cash-and-stock bid for HP last week by $2 to $24 per share ahead of a tender offer it plans to launch in early March. It is also asking HP shareholders to replace HP's board directors with Xerox's nominees at the company's annual shareholder meeting later this year.
HP, whose shares ended on Friday at $22.37, is expected to dismiss the sweetened offer as inadequate when it unveils its most recent quarterly earnings on Feb. 24. It told investors last week it wants them to have "full information" on the company before responding publicly to Xerox.
Xerox has invited some HP shareholders to a dinner at a restaurant in the Riverside neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut on Feb. 18, the sources said. Xerox CEO John Visentin is expected to attend, one of the sources added.
Enough HP shareholders backing HP CEO Enrique Lores could embolden the company to remain independent or hold out for a better deal.
Other such meetings are possible in the coming days, said another of the sources, who asked not to be identified because the meeting is confidential.
Xerox and HP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Xerox has said it expects the combination with HP, which has four times its market capitalization of about $8 billion, to yield approximately $2 billion in cost synergies. The two companies focus on complementary segments of the printing market.
The printing industry is in decline as companies and consumers turn to digital documents to save money and help the environment. This has put pressure on companies in the sector to consolidate and reverse their revenue decline through acquisitions that can boost their market share.
HP, which separated from servers and networking equipment provider Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Inc in 2015, has participated in this consolidation, acquiring Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's printer business for $1.05 billion in 2017.
HP has been reluctant to engage in deal discussions with Xerox since November, when the latter launched its takeover campaign after reaching a settlement with Fujifilm Holdings Corp that resolved a legal dispute over their 57-year-old joint venture and a previous attempt to merge, yielding a $2.3 billion after-tax payoff for Xerox.