18 March 2005 Oracle and SAP continued their bidding war for Retek yesterday with Oracle upping its offering for the supply chain software maker to $645 million or $11.25 a share.
The move came barely twelve hours after business applications vendor SAP was forced to raised its offer to $617 million (up from an original ‘agreed’ sale price of $496 million).
According to analysts, the price could go even higher. Retek’s stock price closed yesterday at $11.65, double its value on 25 February when the bidding war began.
Retek’s board had previously accepted SAP’s “best and final” offer and agreed to pay $15 million if it pulled out of the deal. With SAP’s revised bid, that was raised to $25 million.
In a separate development, Oracle has been left without a CFO after Harry You, who only took the top finance job eight months ago, resigned to become CEO of BearingPoint, the consulting and business services company formerly known as KPMG.
