Oracle Profit Drops on Acquisition-Related Expenses
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Software maker Oracle Corp. (ORCL) Thursday posted a lower quarterly profit as a rise in acquisition-related expenses offset higher revenue and the company's shares fell more than 3 percent.
Second quarter net income for the period ended Nov. 30 fell to $798 million, or 15 cents per share, from $815 million, or 16 cents per share, from a year earlier. Revenue rose 19 percent to $3.29 billion.
Excluding one-time items, the company said it posted a per-share profit of 19 cents, up 16 percent from 16 cents in the year-ago period . That was in line with the average Wall Street view of 19 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oracle said that net revenue of its database middleware new license revenue rose 5 percent to $785 million and net revenue of its applications software rose 24 percent to $266 million. Net services revenue rose 26 percent to $675 million.
In the past two years, Oracle has spent some $19 billion buying up its rivals as part of a bid to lead consolidation in what the company sees as a maturing industry for business aimed at large enterprises.
Oracle stock has lost nearly 7 percent since the beginning of the year, while major rival SAP AG of Germany shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange are up about 5 percent during the same period.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oracle shares trade at about 16 times its projected 2006 earnings per share, excluding items, while SAP shares excluding items on the New York Stock Exchange are valued at a 27 times projected earnings.
Shares of Oracle, which were little changed during regular session trading on Nasdaq, dropped 44 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $12.38 in after-hours trading once the quarterly results were reported.