By Paul Hodgson, Contributor There’s been a lot of publicity lately for CEOs earning $1 in base salary – the likes of Larry Ellison at Oracle, John Mackey at Whole Foods and Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard, though it is only John Mackey who is restrained elsewhere in his package, the others can earn millions in stock and incentives. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By The Huffington Post News Editors
HONOLULU (AP) — Larry Ellison bought a small commuter airline in Hawaii in part to ensure it would continue service to the island that is mostly owned by the Oracle Corp. CEO, according to a representative for the billionaire’s personal investment company.
The danger that Island Air could go out of business pushed Ellison’s company to prepare contingency plans in case the airline failed, Lawrence Investments LLC Vice President Paul Marinelli said this week in a telephone interview. One option considered was to sign contracts with other interisland carriers to provide flights to Lanai.
Ellison purchased 98 percent of the land on Lanai from Castle and Cooke Inc. last year.
Filed under: Investing
There are not many companies that could have a 35% stock drop in six months where the CEO would be under tremendous pressure. That includes Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook. Although he was hand-picked by deceased former CEO and founder Steve Jobs, the Apple board many consider him a liability if Apple’s new products fail in the marketplace and the company misses a number of its financial forecast, and its share prices continues to fall rapidly. Apple’s board, like any other responsible one, has an obligation to pick the best person possible run the company. And Cook may have stumbled though enough tests that his ouster may be just months away.
Who would replace Cook? The list is fairly short, given Apple’s size and the complexity of its products and technology.
Apple would not turn inside the company to pick a new chief executive. Too many of Apple’s most senior management have been with the firm too long and are tainted with their association with Apple’s trouble.
Potential new CEOs for Apple:
John Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is considered the dean of Silicon Valley CEOs. Chambers, who is almost 65, has captained Cisco since 1995. The firm’s revenue over that period has grown from less than $2 billion a year to nearly $50 billion. Cisco’s operations are vast, and among the most complex in the tech industry.
The dark horse for the Apple job is the chairman of arch rival Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) — Eric Schmidt. He is no longer CEO of Google, having been moved out of that job by the board and replaced by Larry Page. Google’s shares have reached an all-time high, and much of the reason for the firm’s success goes to Schmidt. But Schmidt may want a second act after being pushed upstairs at Google. If he joined Apple and turned it around, he could be considered the greatest CEO in tech history. That, by itself, could be an enticement. And Schmidt has another advantage. He is a former Apple board member.
Retired International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) CEO Sam Palmisano led one of the world’s largest technology companies through a transformation that helped it diversity into software and services and move it further away from hardware. He ran IBM during the mammoth integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting in 2002, considered one of the signature moves in reinventing IBM.
The most risky move Apple could take is to hire former Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd, who was pushed out of the company and is now co-president of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL). Oracle founder Larry Ellison said that Hurd was one of the tech industry’s most skilled leaders and recruited him within weeks after his ouster from HP. Hurd is known as a hard-nosed operator who ran one of the most diverse tech companies in the world, and ran it well.
There is a slight chance Apple would turn to its own board. Chairman Arthur D. Levinson built biotech company Genentech. He was made CEO of that company in 1995 and is credited with making it into a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Morgan Brennan, Forbes Staff
For years now, Larry Ellison, Oracle chief and America’s third richest man, has been bullish on Malibu’s Carbon Beach. In November he bought producer Jerry Bruckheimer‘s three-bed, three-bath bungalow for an undisclosed price, a mere two months after shelling out $36.9 million for former Yahoo chief Terry Semel‘s 10,300-square foot Michael Graves-designed compound nearby. The deals pushed his Carbon Beach holdings into the double-digits, though some brokers familiar with the area (and his holdings) say he owns more like a dozen properties on the sandy strip. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Filed under: Technology, Mergers & Acquisitions
Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) has promised no more large mergers for the near-term, although buying a $1.6 billion company still appears to be fair game for Larry Ellison and his team at the world’s largest CRM player. Acme Packet Inc. (NASDAQ: APKT) is being acquired by Oracle for $29.25 per share in cash. Acme’s Net-Net product family fulfills security, service assurance and regulatory requirements in service provider, enterprise and contact center networks.
This represents close to a 22% profit over the weekend, compared to Acme’s closing bell price of $23.94 on Friday. We will just go ahead and throw out there that law firms probably are already putting up their “notice of investigations,” or perhaps are already preparing formal class action suites, as Acme’s 52-week trading range is $13.26 to $36.27 per share. Oracle said that this represents a fully diluted equity value of $2.1 billion, but net of cash this represents an enterprise value of $1.7 billion. Oracle’s market capitalization rate of $171 billion makes this acquisition hardly even a footnote, and Acme’s expected sales of almost $300 million for 2013 versus the $38 billion or so expected from Oracle makes this deal too small to move the barometer very much.
Here is how the companies describe the combination and the benefits of the deal:
The combination of Oracle and Acme Packet is expected to accelerate the migration to all-IP networks by enabling secure and reliable communications from any device, across any network. Users are increasingly connected and expect to communicate anytime and anywhere using their application, device, and network of choice. Oracle Communications along with Acme Packet can help service providers and enterprises meet these demanding requirements by delivering an end-to-end portfolio of technologies that will support the deployment, innovation and monetization of all-IP networks.
This particular transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2013, but the deal is of course subject to Acme Packet stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Acme’s board of directors already has approved the deal.
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Mergers & Acquisitions, Mergers and Buy Outs, Technology, Technology Companies Tagged: APKT, ORCL
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Eric Jackson, Contributor After Steve Jobs died, his friend Larry Ellison was asked by Kara Swisher what were the key things that we – regular people – could learn from him.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Bob Evans, AdVoice Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (Getty Images North America via @daylife) In the past decade, Oracle has acquired about 100 companies. And out of all of those deals, Larry Ellison recently cited the 2009 acquisition of Sun Microsystems as “the most strategic and profitable acquisition Oracle has ever made.” By contrast, some media […]
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
