PeopleSoft Would Like Another Bid
PeopleSoft Inc. would welcome an investor to take a stake in the company and block Oracle Corp.’s $7.7-billion hostile bid, a director testified Thursday.
“We don’t have a white squire, but we’d love the opportunity,” director A. George Battle told a Wilmington, Del., court.
Speaking at the trial of Oracle’s lawsuit to knock out PeopleSoft’s takeover defenses, Battle said the company had talked to potential investors since the June 2003 bid. None of the discussions resulted in an investment, he added.
Battle’s remarks came after PeopleSoft softened its defense against the bid in the wake of this month’s dismissal of Chief Executive Craig Conway, who led the opposition to Oracle’s takeover attempt. PeopleSoft director Steven Goldby testified last week that the board would be willing to discuss a deal at the “right price.”
PeopleSoft hoped another company would propose a merger and rescue it from Oracle’s bid, Battle said Thursday. “No white knight ever surfaced,” he said, adding that PeopleSoft is not pursuing talks with any investors at the moment.
Oracle is pursuing PeopleSoft to raise its share of the market for business software and shrink its reliance on databases. PeopleSoft, the second-biggest maker of software for business functions such as human resources, has resisted the $21-a-share bid, calling it inadequate.
Oracle sued PeopleSoft last year in Delaware Chancery Court, asking Judge Leo Strine Jr. to invalidate its poison pill and customer-rebate programs to clear the way for a takeover.
PeopleSoft’s poison pill, a shareholder rights plan, would flood the market with low-cost stock and its “customer assurance program” would provide rebates to software licensees if Oracle takes over, making the buyout prohibitively expensive.
Oracle said the program carried a potential cost of $2.02 billion as of June 30.
Shares of Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft fell 38 cents to $21.08. Shares of Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle rose 1 cent to $12. Both trade on Nasdaq.
