Oracle closes BEA deal; Last 'logical' purchase?
Oracle said Tuesday that it closed its acquisition of BEA Systems following European Commission approval.
In a statement, Oracle president Charles Phillips BEA will help the company's vision of a "a modern service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure" and provide "a series of complementary and well-engineered middleware products."
Wall Street analysts say BEA should add about 4 cents a share in earnings and $1.1 billion in sales to Oracle's results (all resources). Analysts are generally upbeat about Oracle's May quarter (the fiscal fourth quarter).
Ahead of the BEA deal closing, Cowen and Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher upped his fiscal 2009 earnings estimate to $1.48 a share, which includes BEA. Wall Street is expecting fiscal 2009 earnings of $1.45 a share, according to Thomson Financial.
More importantly, Goldmacher noted that the BEA deal may signal one of the last logical purchases by Oracle. In a research note, the analyst said:
We expect Oracle to remain acquisitive and continue to drive growth and expand margins by consolidating the space, but believe that any significant deals would be "outside the box" and viewed with skepticism by the market. There are no logical acquisitions of consequence left. We expect to see Oracle move into infrastructure management in order build out an integrated solution while simultaneously creating a SaaS platform.