Any Future Bid For BEA Would Be Lower - Oracle CEO

"If we made another offer [for BEA], the price would be lower," Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison told investors at the company's annual financial analyst meeting Wednesday (FT). In late October, BEA (BEAS) rejected Oracle's unsolicited $17/share bid (full story), saying it, "significantly undervalues BEA, and is therefore not in the best interests of BEA shareholders." BEA countered by saying it was willing to sell itself for $21/share, a price Ellison called at the time "impossibly high." Oracle shares dropped hard last week amid a broad tech downturn, while BEA shares are largely unchanged since the standoff as investors have anticipated a renewed bid from Oracle, or potentially other suitors. "For the BEA board to make the claim that they are worth $21 (per share) without any detailed supporting analysis could mean that they have another interested party," Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert said. Possible buyers besides Oracle include IBM and Hewlett-Packard. While not saying he wouldn't renew his bid, Ellison told investors, "It looks like no one is going to buy BEA. We were the only buyer then."

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