Oracle buys PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion

Oracle Corporation has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire PeopleSoft for $26.50 per share (approximately $10.3 billion). The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and should close by early January. 

"We announced both, a great quarter and the agreement to acquire PeopleSoft. This merger gives Oracle even more scale and momentum," said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. "The real highlight of our most recent quarter was the 57% growth in our applications business, and this merger is going to make that applications business bigger and stronger,” he added. 

"On an adjusted proforma basis, we expect this merger to be one cent accretive in Q4 of this year (FY05), about two cents a quarter or eight cents per year, in FY06, and a bit more in FY07,” Larry further elaborated. 

"With this merger, we will have more customers, which increases our ability to invest more in applications development and support. We intend to enhance PeopleSoft 8 and develop a PeopleSoft 9 and enhance JD Edwards 5 and develop JD Edwards 6. We intend to immediately extend and improve support for existing JD Edwards and PeopleSoft customers worldwide," he opined. 

Oracle is amending its current tender offer for all outstanding shares of PeopleSoft to expire at midnight, New York city time, on December 28, 2004. As of the close of business on Friday, December 10, 2004, approximately 120,600,093 shares had been tendered in and not withdrawn from the offer. 

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