Page 2 - Oracle using ms tactics

Isn't there something like that in the States, also? If the purchase is going to give you a monopoly, or could give you one, doesn't it have to be looked at by someone?

I think in the states it's after the fact, that is once a competitor or some office has challenged you and takes you to court. Plus, being able to stop sales ahead of time could really be abused by big companies and lawyers, since rich corporations could bog down smaller companies with frivolous suits. Instead, the richer companies can make illegal mergers, then be separated by the courts after they've cashed in. Not sure which is better...

But that's just the way I think it is. I of course, have no reference or real idea of the way it is.

The Stock Market is actually very simplistic - you buy stocks of companies for investment; at the end of the year you collect stock dividends on the company profit which is based on how many shares of the stock you own. Hostile takeovers are a little more complicated.

A hostile takeover can only happen if either of the following 2 are met:

A) A person who is not an integral part of the corporation aquires 51% (or more) of the companies stock and plans on leveraging this to take control of the companies operations.
B) A group of persons who are not an integral part of the corporation aquires 51% (or more) in stocks and as a group plans on leveraging this to take control of the companies operations.

Sounds easy, but it is hard. In order to get 51% of the shares, at least 51% of the shares must be traded on the market floor. This is not common as the owner/founder of the corporation will more than likely be the owner of at least 51% of the shares - which will leave only 49% of the shares to be traded which means that a hostile takeover can not happen unless 2% more of the stocks fall onto the market floor for trading.

Now, takeovers do happen. Lets say that Mr. Majority Owner (who owns the 51% or more shares) realizes the company is in desperate need of some capital to keep the company going (maybe the company is going bankrupt) - he may elect to sell out 25% of his shares to get capital to keep the company operational for a while. One investor buys these stocks, and then colaberates with the person or group that holds 49% of the shares and turns around and sells them the 25% he just bought - now that person or group owns 74% of the companies stock and thus is now the new owners of the corporation, fires all the board members, replaces the board with there elected board and replaces the previous corporate president and that is a hostile takeover. It is a win situation for the group or person that did the takeover AND for the investor who sold them the 25% of the stocks as he may have only payed $25.00 per share for them and may have sold them for $35.00 per share; @ 2 million shares, thats 20 million profit (after capital gain taxes, maybe 16 million profit).

There are government regulations that oversee these things - but in most cases, it doesn't make a difference.

In short - if you want to play with the big boys, you have to be able to accept the conseqeunces.

And that, friends, is how pin-striped capitalists are different than dirty pirates... err... waitaminnit..... ((insert silly Monty Python joke or jingle here))

Just got this weeks edition of e-week in and this story is on front cover. Oracle is offering 5.1 billion for peoplesoft. Peoplesoft just announced a planned acquisition of J.D. Edwards - so Oracle would be getting 2 companies for 1:



Looking at other happenings - I wonder if this has anything to do with the Sap/MySQL announcement -> http://news.com.com/2100-1012-1010522.html

I doubt that Oracle is to concerned about that at this point...

Also in other news, on MySQL 5.0:

That'll get rid of a few questions on the PHP and MySQL boards...

---John Holmes...

I read the eWeek article and they mentioned that Peoplesoft has a "poison pill" to help try and protect against this sort of - attack - if you will. What does that mean precisely?

Hard saying. They could be plotting with some other huge software/db vendor.

This is what can happen which would tip in Oracles favor:

The acquisition of J.D. Edwards could cause the stock value of PeopleSoft to plumit. If this happens, the company would be open game for Oracle as it would cause all stock holders to get nervous and thus they will start selling off thier stocks of the company to the highest bidder - which would be Oracle.

The poisen pill can be any number of things, as a partnership with a huge company. So, to keep healthy during the J.D. Edwards acquisition, they could also be releasing a new huge product with the backing of some other large corp. or something along those lines that will keep stock holders from getting nervous and thus up the value of thier stock, which in effect could put Oracle out of reach in the attempts to purchase the company. But, there are any number of things that can be considered as a poisen pill, this is just one thing that could happen.

This is starting to get intresting. I brought up the SAP thing as I keep seeing SAP mentioned in the articles - somewhere I think that this is boiling down because of thier recent moves...

Well I am waiting to see what happens here, going to be interesting to say the least

Some interesting reading

• PeopleSoft formally rejects Oracle bid
• PeopleSoft Sues to Block Takeover Bid