On Oct 12, Oracle offerred to buy BEA for $ 6.6 billion in cash -- which amounts to $ 17 per share for BEA at a 25% premium over BEA's closing stock price on Oct 11. However, BEA's board has rejected the Oracle offer, stating that it undervalued BEA. What's in for Oracle & BEA? A CNET report quotes Tech Business Analyst Stuart Williams:
"Oracle's...offer to purchase BEA Systems provides a logical conclusion to the questions surrounding the future of BEA....Oracle can integrate the BEA technology directly into the core of the Oracle stack, strengthening it, while at the same time removing a competitor and adding close to $1.4 billion in annual revenue to its coffers."
Mid last year Larry Ellision had told Financial Times that he was looking for more acquisitions and for sometime there was speculation of Oracle buying Novell. Networkworld reports that if the BEA acquisition goes through it would be the 10th in 2007 by Oracle. The whole Oracle acquisition list by Networkworld is here.
