Footnotes Roundup: Ellison's Pricey Security, Hyperion Execs' Feathered Nests

• The business intelligence (BI) software market, a hot space filled with midsize companies struggling for critical mass, is considered ripe for consolidation. If Hyperion Solutions gets picked off through an acquisition, its executives will have nicely feathered nests to retreat to. On Tuesday the company's board approved a compensation plan dangling significant cash and stock bonuses before select senior managers, including all of Hyperion's named executive officers. The awards -- cash grants ranging from 230,000 and $990,000 and stock grants of 3,500 to 15,000 shares -- will be paid out on June 30, 2008 if Hyperion meets license revenue goals. But if the company is acquired before then, the stock awards will be granted sooner.</>
• Google has so much cash available for investment that it needs to convince the SEC that it's not a mutual fund. The company ended its last quarter with $9.8 billion in cash and liquid securities, almost all of it invested in U.S. government bonds. Google can pull down higher returns in other investments, but it risks triggering the SEC's mutual-fund regulations, which apply to companies whose securities make up more than 40 percent of their assets.
• Google filed last month for an exemption to the Investment Company Act of 1940, which would allow it to make more adventurous investments without coming under mutual-fund scrutiny. The paper filing isn't available online, but Bloomberg News picked up news of the application, which Google cast as "critical" to its ability to compete with its rivals. Microsoft and Yahoo have similar exemptions.</>
• Why is Oracle paying three times as much to provide home security for Larry Ellison as it did two years ago? An Oracle proxy filing this week reports that the company spent $1.8 million on home security for Ellison in its 2006 fiscal year, up from $531,000 in 2004. Fine-detail sleuth Footnoted.org asks whether Ellison is really in twice as much danger as fellow tech-exec celebrities like Michael Dell. </>