Oracle withdraws $6.7bn bid

Source: Technology Digital

Date :10/29/2007 4:40:00 AM

Oracle Corp withdrew its $6.7 billion buyout bid for business software maker BEA Systems Inc on Sunday.

In a statement, after its 5 p.m. PST Sunday deadline passed, Oracle the world's No.3 software maker, pulled the $17-per-share bid.

"Over the last 20 days the BEA board has repeatedly rejected our offer and refused to meet with us, even though we offered to meet without any preconditions. We asked the BEA board to allow their shareholders to vote on our $17 per share proposal. They chose not to. If the BEA shareholders are unhappy with the behavior of the BEA board it is up to those shareholders, not Oracle, to take the appropriate action," Oracle said in a statement.

Proxy battle

There is now the platform for a proxy battle between BEA's largest shareholder Carl Icahn and the BEA board.

In a letter e-mailed to BEA's board of directors, Icahn accused it of refusing to negotiate.

The billionaire investor and shareholder activist, who initially agreed with BEA's board that the middleware enterprise software maker was more valuable than Oracle's offer of $17 a share, repeated his demands that BEA let shareholders vote on the highest bid by any suitor.

Icahn said he would be willing to accept Oracle's bid if a higher one did not emerge, and threatened to sue BEA as well as launch a proxy battle for control of the company if its board did not let shareholders decide BEA's fate.

Icahn has been accumulating a stake in BEA and now is its largest stockholder with more than 58 million shares, or about 13 percent.

Analysts have speculated that Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM and SAP AG may be interested in BEA, but they have not announced any offers so far.

October 29 2007

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