- According to sources familiar with the subject, Oracle Corp. is in discussions to purchase Cerner Corp., a provider of electronic medical records, in a deal that could be valued at approximately $30 billion and expand Oracle’s healthcare footprint.
According to several sources, if the negotiations don’t fall apart or drag on, it might reach an agreement shortly. If a transaction is struck, Oracle’s most significant ever will be valued at more than $280 billion. The company is situated in Kansas City, Mo. Cerner creates software that hospitals and clinicians use to store and analyze medical records and other health-related information. It is worth around $23 billion on the stock market. With a conventional acquisition premium, a sale would value the firm at over $30 billion, though it did not disclose the exact details of the agreement.
Oracle is one of the essential software providers to other firms and organizations, having relocated its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas last year. In August, Cerner hired David Feinberg as chief executive officer, and he started in October. Mr. Feinberg joined Oracle from Google. He spearheaded the Alphabet Inc. unit’s drive into healthcare, including agreements with several of the country’s major hospital systems to gather and analyze data.
Oracle already has a strong footprint in the healthcare industry, including software that helps health insurers, providers, and public health systems analyze data to enhance efficiency and patient outcomes.
The business also expanded its share repurchase authorization by $10 billion:
Oracle shares finished at $103.22 on Thursday, down marginally from their all-time high set the day before amid a broad-based tech selloff. They rose over 15% last week after the business posted fiscal-second-quarter earnings above expectations. Chief Executive Safra Catz reiterated the company’s outlook for full-year sales growth to rise from the previous year. The firm also expanded its share repurchase authorization by $10 billion.
The acquisition of Cerner might aid Oracle’s move to the cloud. After initially being sluggish to embrace the expanding market for storing and analyzing data on distant computers, investors have warmed up to Oracle as the firm focuses more on gaining cloud-computing business.
In April, Cerner’s acquisition would follow Microsoft’s $16 billion purchase of artificial-intelligence startup Nuance Communications Inc., a bet on the expanding need for digital healthcare technologies. Larry Ellison, an outspoken millionaire, and others started Oracle in 1977. Mr. Ellison controls nearly 42% of the company’s stock, which is worth well over $100 billion.
A bid for Cerner would far surpass Oracle’s next-largest transaction, the nearly $10 billion acquisition of corporate software giant PeopleSoft Inc. in 2005, followed by a $9 billion acquisition of cloud software provider NetSuite Inc. in 2016.
Oracle demonstrated its desire for more significant purchases in 2020 when it outbid Microsoft for the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok. The Trump administration’s reservations over TikTok’s Chinese ownership practically jeopardized the company, but the Biden administration held the sale on hold indefinitely.
Cerner rivals with privately-held Epic Systems Corp. and Athenahealth Inc., which recently agreed to a $17 billion sale to one group of private equity firms by another.
A merger between Oracle and Cerner would be one of the most significant purchases in 2021, shaping up to be one of the busiest mergers and acquisitions years in history. According to Dealogic, merger activity in the United States has increased by 78 percent to $2.45 trillion, as high stock prices and easy money encourage corporations to do deals and special-purpose acquisition companies being established at a fast speed.
FedEx (FDX) Beats Earnings and Revenue Estimates in the Second Quarter:
For the quarter ending November 2021, FedEx (FDX) surprised investors with profits and revenue surprises of 14.18 percent and 4.18 percent, respectively. Do the data reveal anything about the stock’s prospects? FedEx (FDX) exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.23 per share with quarterly earnings of $4.83 per share. In comparison, the company earned $4.83 per share a year earlier.
This quarterly report shows a 14.18 percent profit surprise. This package service firm was projected to report earnings of $4.96 per share a quarter ago but instead reported $4.37, resulting in a -11.90 percent surprise. The firm has outperformed consensus EPS projections twice in the previous four quarters.
FedEx, part of the Zacks Transportation – Air Freight and Cargo business, reported revenue of $23.47 billion for the quarter ending November 2021, which was 4.18 percent more than the Zacks Consensus Estimate. This compared to revenues of $20.56 billion a year earlier. Over the previous four quarters, the firm has surpassed consensus sales projections four times.
FedEx stock has dropped around 7.3 percent since the start of the year, compared to the S&P 500’s increase of 25.4 percent. While FedEx has lagged in the market so far this year, investors wonder what the stock’s next move will be. There seem to be no easy answers to this critical question, but one reliable statistic that can help investors answer it is the company’s profit prediction.
This provides the most recent changes in consensus earnings predictions for the next quarter(s) and how these expectations have changed previously. According to empirical research, short-term market fluctuations and changes in earnings estimate revisions have a significant relationship. Investors may keep track of payments estimate revisions on their own or use a tried-and-true grading tool like the Zacks Rank, which has a proven track record of harnessing the power of revisions to earnings estimates.
FedEx’s estimate revisions are mixed ahead of this earnings announcement. While the size and direction of estimate revisions may vary due to the company’s recently issued earnings report, the stock now has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
The current average EPS forecast for the approaching quarter is $4.47 per share on $22.87 billion in revenue and $19.49 per share on $90.85 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year.
Investors should keep in mind that the forecast for the industry might have a significant influence on the stock’s performance. According to our findings, the top half of Zacks-ranked industries beat the bottom half by a proportion of more than two to one. Greenbrier Companies (GBX), another company in the Zacks Transportation category, is yet to announce results for the quarter ending November 2021.
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