BEA accepts $8.5 billion Oracle offer

(Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday won a three-month-long campaign to buy BEA Systems Inc (BEAS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) by raising its bid for the business software maker by 14 percent to $8.5 billion.

Activist investor Carl Icahn, BEA's largest shareholder with a nearly 13 percent stake, said he supported the deal, one of last year's highest profile corporate takeover battles.

Icahn and BEA's board initially rejected Oracle, saying it undervalued the company, but no other buyers emerged even as BEA's investment bank, Goldman Sachs, solicited bids from other software makers.

The price that BEA finally agreed to, $19.375 per share in cash, represents a compromise between the $17 that Oracle offered in October and the $21 that BEA had demanded.

"It's a fair price. It's a good deal for Oracle. It's a good deal for BEA," said Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research.

Shares of BEA rose 19 percent to $18.59 in morning Nasdaq trade, while Oracle shares were down 2 cents to $21.29.

BEA is a maker of "middleware," which helps business computer systems interact with each other. Oracle could sell its technology alongside its own middleware, database products and business-management software.

 

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