BEA rejects Oracle bid |
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By Mark Brunelli, News Editor
15 Oct 2007 | SearchOracle.com |
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BEA Systems has rejected Oracle's $17 per share takeover bid, saying in a letter to Oracle president Charles Phillips that the offer was too low.
"It is apparent to our board that BEA is worth substantially more to Oracle, to others and, importantly, to our shareholders than the price indicated," BEA vice president William Klein wrote in the letter to Phillips on Friday.
Oracle last week offered to buy BEA Systems Inc., a well-known San Jose, Calif.-based middleware provider, for about $6.66 billion.
BEA has rejected the initial offer, but has indicted a willingness to negotiate further. BEA has made it clear that it doesn't want a long, drawn out bidding process, however, because BEA and Oracle are direct competitors.
"The board cannot consider any process which is long in duration, open-ended in nature, or would divulge competitively sensitive information which could materially harm our business and our shareholders' interests," Klein wrote.
For its part, Oracle is sticking with the $17 per share offer for now. In a response to BEA's rejection, Oracle's Phillips wrote that Oracle's "proposed price is a substantial premium to an already-inflated stock price."
Meanwhile, German enterprise resource planning vendor SAP AG, Oracle's chief rival, has ruled out making a counteroffer for BEA. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann told the Financial Times that SAP and BEA's operations are too similar for a counteroffer to make sense.
SAP made big acquisition news last week when it announced that it has deviated from its strategy of mostly organic growth and made a deal to purchase business intelligence stalwart Business Objects for $6.8 billion.
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