Pssst. Wanna Buy an Enterprise Infrastructure Software Outfit?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 19, 2007 at 9:41 AM PT
If billionaire investor-provocateur Carl Icahn wants to put enterprise software company BEA Systems on the block, he’d best prepare himself for another Time Warner-style siege.
According to Kevin Faulkner, the company’s senior vice president of investor relations, BEA isn’t for sale. And what’s more, even if Icahn is able to use his 8.5% of the company’s outstanding shares to force a sale, he may not be able to find a buyer. The company plans to restate as much as $390 million in costs for backdated stock options, and its license revenues are shrinking.
“You’re not seeing a whole lot of excitement there,” said analyst Rob Enderle. “And this class of software, because of open source, it’s much harder to get people interested in it unless you’re doing phenomenally well in sales–which BEA has not been.”
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