Once More With Feeling: Oracle Re-Extends PeopleSoft Offer

The $19.50 per share cash offer now expires at midnight eastern time September 19. The original offer was to end July 7 and was extended to August 15 before this latest move. A completed deal would be worth approximately $7.5 billion since the issuance of additional PeopleSoft shares late last month.

"We are extending our offer for PeopleSoft and we remain fully committed to acquiring PeopleSoft," said Oracle spokesman Jim Finn said in a statement released late Friday.

As of Friday, 37,08,208 PeopleSoft shares had been tendered and not withdrawn, according to the statement. In early July, the first time Oracle extended its offer, it said 34.7 million shares had been tendered. (See story.)

Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif., announced its hostile bid June 6, just days after PeopleSoft said it planned to buy J.D. Edwards. Since that time PeopleSoft completed that $1.8 billion, deal. Many thought the addition of J.D. Edwards would scuttle Oracle's offer.

The surprise hostile buyout attempt by Oracle is nothing if not controversial, drawing attention from the Connecticut state attorney general's office which filed suit to stop it and watchdog groups across the political spectrum.

For more on this ongoing story, see CRN's PeopleSoft news center.