PeopleSoft/Oracle: Shareholders Split

With the deadline for PeopleSoft Inc. (Nasdaq: PSFT) shareholders to decide whether to tender their shares to Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) fast approaching, stockholders are already taking sides. Reports emerged today that two major PeopleSoft shareholders will split their votes on whether to accept Oracles hostile $8.8 billion bid (see Oracle & PeopleSoft: The Final Round).

The hostile takeover bid has become something of a circus during recent months, complete with finger-pointing, courtroom battles, and boardroom machinations. PeopleSoft shareholders have until midnight Eastern on Friday to decide whether they will accept Oracle's offer (see Oracle Battles With PeopleSoft and PeopleSoft Suffers Crisis of Confidence)

Oracle today announced that Capital Guardian Trust Company, which owns 5.9 percent of PeopleSoft will accept the offer. This would obviously be good news for Oracle, although Capital Guardian Trust spokesperson Kelly Malanky could neither “deny nor confirm the tender offer.”

But Oracle is not getting everything its own way. Private Capital Management filed Tuesday that it will not tender its shares because it believes Oracle’s offer greatly undervalues PeopleSoft. Private Capital holds a 9.4 percent interest in the Pleasanton, Calif.-based software vendor.

A spokesman for Private Capital declined to add any comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.In the meantime, Oracle and PeopleSoft execs have been hard at work lobbying shareholders. “There’s a lot of discussions going on,” a PeopleSoft spokesman told NDCF. “And what we’re hearing is that $24 is not an adequate price for their shares.”

— John Papageorge, Senior Editor, and James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-Gen Data Center Forum