Icahn on Oracleâs BEA Bid
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Carl C. Icahn thinks BEA Systems should sell itself for $17 a share. Except when he doesnât. Right now, at least, the corporate rabble-rouser is furious that BEA refused to accept Oracleâs takeover offer, one that expired Sunday night. Mr. Icahn on Friday even took the next step of filing a lawsuit in Delaware court to [...].
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BEA Systems Inc  said on  Thursday it is prepared to sell itself for $8.2 billion, which  is a 24 percent premium to a bid from Oracle Corp  that  the business software maker rejected.
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Oracle has set a deadline for Sunday on its bid to buy BEA, which has officially rejected its $6.7 billion offer.
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Oracle has agreed to buy BEA Systems for about $8.5 billion, the companies announced Wednesday.The deal comes just three months after&#160;the middleware vendor turned down an earlier offer of $6.7 billion.Oracle hopes that acquiring middleware vendor BEA will&#160;allow it to improve its own middleware suite, Fusion.That middleware is key to helping customers migrate their systems to a services-oriented architecture (SOA), CEO Larry Ellison said in a conference call last month to discuss the company&#39;s earnings.With Fusion already able to link to BEA&#39;s WebLogic Java application server, the deal is likely to speed Oracle&#39;s adoption of Java-based middleware, the company said.Oracle&#39;s customers have been telling it for years to buy BEA, it said.However the members of BEA&#39;s board were less sold on the idea: They&#160;turned down an offer from Oracle of $17 per BEA share in October, saying it &quot;significantly undervalues BEA.&quot; Oracle in turn&#160;dismissed the BEA board&#39;s counter-offer of $21 per share as &quot;impossibly high&quot;.But on Wednesday the companies split the difference, and BEA&#39;s board announced it had unanimously approved Oracle&#39;s latest offer of $19.375 in cash per BEA share.The board accepted only after spending several months looking for other ways to maximize shareholder value, BEA&#39;s chairman and CEO Alfred Chuang said in a statement.The companies expect to close the deal by mid-year, subject to the approval of regulators and BEA shareholders.&#160;
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Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn on Friday called for the sale of BEA Systems Inc., a business software maker whose stock price has sagged with the growth in open-source software and under pressure from larger competitors such as IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp.
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Business software maker BEA Systems Inc  has agreed to be acquired by Oracle Corp  for $8.5 billion, the companies said on Wednesday.
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26  Â The business software maker BEA Systems signaled its intent to let Oracleâs $6.7 billion takeover bid expire Sunday, setting the stage for a showdown with its largest shareholder, the billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn.
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After shooing away Oracleâs $6.7 billion takeover bid, BEA dug in its heels for a potentially disruptive battle with its largest shareholder, the activist investor Carl Icahn.
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'This will hurt you more than it hurts me' Oracle let its $17 per share offer for BEA lapse yesterday, but activist investor Carl Icahn has demanded the middleware firm put the offer to shareholders anyway.â¦
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Oracle&#160;on Tuesday morning said that BEA Systems has officially rejected its&#160;offer to acquire the company. BEA had previously said the&#160;offer was too low.&quot;Last night we were told by Bill Klein, Vice President -- Business Planning and Development (speaking on behalf of the board), that BEA&#39;s board again rejected our proposed price of $17 per share in cash,&quot; Oracle said in a statement, adding that the BEA board &quot;has refused to meet with us since we made our October 9th proposal.&quot;Oracle set a deadline for Sunday at 5 p.m. local time on its $17 per share bid.&quot;Oracle has no interest in a long, drawn-out process to acquire BEA,&quot; Oracle said.The total value of the bid is about $6.7 billion.(More to follow.)
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$21 per share? You're having a laugh Oracle scoffed at BEA last night, describing the middleware's self-set $21 per share price tag as "impossibly high" and saying it had no intention of raising its offer.â¦
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We've already established what you are, now we're just working out a price BEA blinked this morning and said it would enter takeover negotiations with Oracle, and anyone else thatâs interested, at a floor of $21 per share.â¦
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SAN FRANCISCO - Oracle Corp. , the third-largest software maker, gave BEA Systems Inc.'s directors five days to consider a $6.7 billion takeover offer before it expires. BEA said it can't accept Oracle's price.
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 29 -- After shooing away Oracle's $6.7 billion takeover bid, BEA Systems dug in its heels for a potentially disruptive battle with its largest shareholder, activist investor Carl C. Icahn.
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With no other suitors stepping forward, business software maker Oracle Corp. is threatening to abandon its $6.7 billion bid for BEA Systems Inc. unless its smaller rival accepts the offer by Sunday evening.
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Oracle Corp  on Wednesday won a three-month-long campaign to buy BEA Systems Inc  by raising its bid for the business software maker by 14 percent to $8.5 billion.
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(InfoWorld) - Talk about raining on a parade. BEA Systems concluded its cheery BEAWorld San Francisco conference last Wednesday. Highlights of the seemingly triumphant event included presentations from executives like Chairman, CEO and President Alfred Chuang and product introductions like its new application server, WebLogic Server 10.3, and a dynamic application development platform called Project Genesis. Then, two days later, well-known corporate activist and billionaire Carl Icahn, a BEA investor, expressed intentions to seek the sale of BEA, believing the company would have a hard time staying afloat as a standalone company in its industry. Icahn may seek to seat a board of directors more favorable to his plea. But not so fast, a BEA insider said. While the company itself has continued to decline comment on the Icahn matter, this insider familiar with BEA's investor-related workings did not give out much hope for Icahn to get a more compliant board elected. Icahn has an 8.5 percent stake in the company, which would represent about 33.5 million shares, said the source, who asked to not be identified. "But if you look closely at the filing, you'll see about 16.2 million of those are options, not actual holdings," the source said. "He only owns about 4 percent," said the source. "What this means is that if he was gong to exercise those options, he'd have to plunk down another several hundred million in cash right now," the source said. Further complicating any efforts to force a sale is that BEA is one of several companies that has had to restate past financial statements due to backdating of stock options. With that issue still ongoing, the company cannot even hold an annual meeting where Icahn could attempt to elect a favorable board, according to the source. An annual meeting is expected to be held this fall, but even then, BEA only re-elects three or four members of its 10-member board every year, the source said. Thus Icahn could not get control of the board in a single year. Just publicly announcing plans to try to seek a sale of a company can drive up a stock price, the source said. BEA's stock went up 4 percent Friday, the source said. Still, Icahn's setting sights on a software company like BEA, which has only intellectual property assets, "might be a sign of things to come for the tech world," said the source.Â  Icahn has been involved in similar efforts with such companies as Motorola and Lear. Icahn could not be immediately reached on Monday afternoon. BEA has been the target of takeover rumors before. One particular company that has stood out as a potential suitor has been Oracle. But BEA has continued to chug along independently although its license revenues in the most recent quarter shrunk 9 percent, to $123.1 million, over the same time period a year ago. BEA also has plans to move into a new headquarters in downtown San Jose, Calif. next year, even getting a city subsidy to encourage the move. Whether that office building would bear the name of BEA, a prospective new parent company, or possibly remain empty remains to be seen.