Oracle to buy rival Hyperion

Megan Davies

NEW YORK: Oracle Corp., the world's largest database software maker, said on Thursday it would buy rival Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion, to boost its position in the market for performance management software.

Oracle, which has a market value of over $80 billion, will pay $52 in cash for each Hyperion share, which represents a 21 percent premium over Wednesday's closing price of $42.84 on Nasdaq. Shares rose by virtually the same amount in early electronic trading.

Hyperion, along with rival software firms such as French-American firm Business Objects and Cognos, Canada's biggest software firm, has been the subject of takeover speculation in recent months as the industry consolidates.

Meanwhile, Oracle's aggressive acquisition strategy has fueled speculation of possible deals it could pursue. In January, rumors that Oracle would target Walldorf, Germany-based SAP boosted the stock price of the world's biggest maker of business software.

Oracle has spent some $20 billion buying rivals like Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft over the past three years to push into the business applications market as its core database software market matures.

Oracle expects the Hyperion deal to close in April 2007. It expects the deal to add at least 1 cent per share to fiscal 2008 earnings and at least 4 cents a share in 2009.