BEA Holds Its Ground After Oracle Rebuff
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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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InfoWorld - BEA Systems will fit its Weblogic Server Java application server with improvements geared to Web 2.0, SOA and interoperability with Microsoft&#39;s .Net platform, the company said at the BEAWorld San Francisco conference on Wednesday.
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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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'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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BEA Systems Inc  shares fell nearly 6 percent on Friday to trade below Oracle Corp's  bid for the first time since it was made, as the deadline for the offer loomed with no signs of an agreement.
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BEA Systems made good Sunday on its promise to let a 5 p.m. Pacific Time&#160;deadline expire on Oracle&#39;s $17-per-share offer to buy the company.
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Business software giant Oracle remained at odds Friday with BEA Systems over a potential takeover bid after the two rivals exchanged letters holding firm to their positions over the price for BEA.
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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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BEA Systems Inc  said on Thursday it is willing to sell itself for $8.2 billion, but the price was rejected as "impossibly high" by Oracle Corp , the only company that has publicly expressed interest in the software maker.
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Not to be outdone by rival Oracle, BEA Systems has unveiled version 9.0 of its WebLogic Server application server. Homing in on the theme of service-oriented architecture deployment, BEA said the product would
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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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BEA Systems Inc  said on Friday it still cannot accept the $17-per-share takeover bid from Oracle Corp  as it significantly undervalues the business software maker.
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Business software maker Oracle Corp. agreed Wednesday to buy BEA Systems Inc. for about $7.85 billion, a compromise price that ends a months-long dispute over the value of the company that pioneered Web services software.
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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.
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Oracle continues to snap up smaller software companies even while it battles to acquire middleware vendor BEA. On Wednesday Oracle said it had agreed to buy Interlace Systems, which makes operations planning software, for an undisclosed price.Interlace sells software that pulls together data from different sources and allows companies to run &quot;what if&quot; scenarios on the data to determine the outcome of changes they make.Its Integrated Business Planning product has been aimed mainly at manufacturing companies. Customers include Seagate Technologies, the disk drive maker, and Eaton, which makes electrical systems and power systems.Oracle said it would integrate the software with its Enterprise Performance Management System, including the&#160;Hyperion software it bought earlier this year, to give customers better financial and operational planning tools. It won&#39;t discuss a timeline for integration until the merger closes, which is expected to happen next month.Oracle will also continue to offer Interlace&#39;s products on a standalone basis and continue to work with databases and application servers from other vendors, including Microsoft&#39;s SQL Server, IBM&#39;s WebSphere, and SAP&#39;s NetWeaver, according to an FAQ on Oracle&#39;s Web site.Oracle said it would retain Interlace staff with &quot;significant domain expertise&quot; in its products.Interlace is the 10th acquisition Oracle has announced this year and the 36th since 2005. The company said it has become fast and efficient at integrating them all, with specially assigned staff and &quot;proven templates and processes for repeatable success in integration.&quot;On Oct. 12,&#160;Oracle offered $6.7 billion to buy middleware vendor BEA.&#160;BEA called the offer too low, but Oracle on Tuesday said it was a &quot;generous&quot; offer and&#160;gave BEA until Sunday to accept.
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Oracle has agreed to buy BEA Systems for around $8.5 billion, the two companies announced today.
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After Larry flashes extra cash Oracle has signed a definitive agreement to buy BEA for $8.5bn.â¦