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Oracle (ORCL) Warns BEA Systems (BEAS)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The management and board of BEA Systems (BEAS) are boobs of the first order. Oracle (ORCL) offered $17 a share for the company when it was trading below $14. The BEAS shares had not been at $17 since 2002.

The reaction from the BEAS board was that the company was worth $21. The number does not appear to have a rational basis or justification. But, if wishes were horses all the beggars would ride.

Oracle has now come back to BEAS with a message. It follows weeks without any other bidder emerging for the company. Oracle say that, if it makes a bid, it will be below $17. “If we made another offer [for BEA], the price would be lower,” Larry Ellison, the company’s CEO said at Oracle’s annual analyst meeting on Wednesday. Pointing to the recent retreat in technology stocks, he added: “Clearly the $17 price seems too high now," reports the FT.

BEAS has no leverage. It should beg for the $17 and take it. At least its shareholders would get about what the company trades for now.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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