Oracle to go on the M&A warpath again. Interesting speculation. If true, INFA will undoubtedly be on the short list. I read somewhere that Ellison hates INFA's CEO, who was a long time trusted higher-up at ORCL. If true, what better way for Ellison to serve up a cold dish of revenge than to buy INFA? That is exactly how Ellison would aproach it.
Too bad I'm the only one paying attention. Oh, well.
Oracle 'Ready' for More Acquisitions
By Bill Snyder
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
5/17/2005 12:26 PM EDT
thestreet.com
Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq) has completed the integration of PeopleSoft and is ready to consider another major acquisition, says Chairman and former CFO Jeff Henley.
Speaking late Monday at the J.P. Morgan investors conference in San Francisco, Henley said "we've absorbed PeopleSoft. If another deal came along, we're ready."
In fact, Oracle has made several relatively small acquisitions since acquiring PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion in January after a bruising 18-month battle. But until now, Oracle executives have said, in effect, that it was too soon to take on a major M&A project. Oracle, Henley said, has "the capacity to do more large deals."
Henley did not mention specific targets, but two troubled software makers -- Siebel Systems (SEBL:Nasdaq) and BEA Systems (BEAS:Nasdaq) -- have been considered strong possibilities for some time. Siebel is under pressure from its institutional owners to do something to return shareholder value, with a number of holders pushing hard for a sale.
More recently, there has been speculation that Oracle might like to strengthen its hand in the market for business intelligence software by buying Hyperion Solutions (HYSL:Nasdaq) or perhaps Business Objects (BOBJ:Nasdaq ADS) or the somewhat smaller Informatica (INFA:Nasdaq) , which has a market cap of $679.6 million.
Henley also said that paying a dividend "doesn't make sense for us right now." But "at some point in time, we'll probably pay a dividend," he added.
Shares of Oracle had recently slipped 29 cents, or 2.4%, to $12.06 as tech stocks engaged in a modest pullback Tuesday |
