Oracle's anti-SAP deal

Posted Mar 1st 2007 10:55AM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: Competitive Strategy, Oracle Corp (ORCL)

Oracle's (NASDAQ:ORCL) M&A machine has been quiet lately.

Well, that ended today. The company announced it will buy Hyperion Solutions (NASDAQ:HYSL) for $3.3 billion in cash. The offer price is $52 per share, which is a 21% premium.

Hyperion develops so-called business performance management software. That is, it helps businesses collect, analyze, and share data. Apparently, it's a business that's getting lots of traction.

Interestingly enough, in the press release, Oracle indicated that this deal is a way to put even more pressure on its arch rival, SAP (NYSE: SAP).

And, I think it will. After all, a good amount of Hyperion's customers are actually SAP customers.

Also, it looks like Oracle is getting a pretty good valuation – at about 2.4X revenues.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Tags: Hyperion, Hyperion Solutions, HyperionSolutions, Oracle, SAP