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by Jeff Moad, MA Editorial Staff
Posted on Wednesday, February 01, 2006 9:30:00 AM Sign Up to receive Daily News Alerts in your E-mail Inbox    | Abstract: | After shelling out $14 billion to buy 13 companies in 2005, is Oracle Corp. ready to take a break from acquisitions? Not if you believe CEO Larry Ellison. |
After shelling out $14 billion to buy 13 companies in 2005, is Oracle Corp. ready to take a break from acquisitions? Not if you believe CEO Larry Ellison. In recent remarks to securities analysts following release of Oracle's second-quarter earnings, Ellison said his company will need to continue to make what he called strategic acquisitions if it expects to meet its financial goals. Oracle, Ellison said, has committed to achieving 20 percent earnings-per-share growth for the next five years. "We don't think we can get there for the full five-year plan without some strategic acquisitions," Ellison said. He predicted that for the five-year period about half of Oracle's growth will come through acquisitions, while the other half will come organically. So who will Oracle target for acquisition? While Ellison offered few details, expert observers say Oracle is likely to continue to target markets such as retail, government, and financial services, where key rivals -- specifically SAP -- have not yet staked out dominant positions. Oracle is also likely to make technology-driven acquisitions intended to bolster its Fusion Middleware product line. But, experts say, Oracle is not expected to specifically target manufacturing or to again engage in blockbuster buys of big enterprise application vendors such as it did with PeopleSoft, which Oracle bought last January for $11 billion, and Siebel, which, pending government approval, it will buy for $5.85 billion. [Click to continue] |
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