Oracle pumps out a dividend

Posted Mar 19th 2009 10:10AM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: Major Movement, Earnings Reports, Oracle Corp (ORCL)

For the most part, Corporate America is slashing its dividends, or eliminating them, but Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) actually announced it will pay a quarterly dividend.

True, it's a small one, at 5 cents per share, but hey, it's a nice perk for investors.

It's also a sign of strength for Oracle's business. In tough times, the fact remains that organizations still need mission critical software.

In the latest quarterly report, Oracle generated net income of $1.33 billion, or 26 cents per share. This was despite the strong headwinds of currency volatility.

It certainly helps that Oracle has a broad platform of technologies, which includes databases, ERP, middleware and CRM (yes, that's a lot of acronyms). Thus, there are many opportunities for cross-selling.

Interestingly, Oracle thinks it can push its operating profit margins to a hefty 50%. That would be a nice boost to cash flows, which were already $8 billion for the past 12 months.

So far in today's trading, Oracle's shares are up 12% to $17.71.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and the founder of BizEquity, a free online business valuation tool for small businesses. You can reach him on Twitter.

Tags: earnings, inthenews, oracle, orcl