Oracle Extends Deadline On PeopleSoft BidOracle Extends Deadline On PeopleSoft Bid

Oracle isn't giving up. Monday the software giant said it has extended its $19.50 per share offer for PeopleSoft Inc. to Friday, Aug. 15. The offer was previously set to expire this Friday, July 18. Oracle also said that as of last Friday a total of 43.8 million shares had been tendered.

Nevertheless, time may be running out. PeopleSoft said on Monday that the Department of Justice has granted an "early termination" of the mandated waiting period for its efforts to acquire enterprise applications vendor J.D. Edwards & Co. PeopleSoft said it expects to complete the acquisition this week after its $1.75 billion cash and stock offer expires at midnight Thursday, July 17.

Oracle has said only that it will re-evaluate its $6.3 billion PeopleSoft bid should the J.D. Edwards buyout go through. Oracle is supplying information to the Justice Department to allay regulators' concerns about the anti-trust implications of an Oracle acquisition of PeopleSoft.

Last week, Oracle executives told Wall Street analysts that it's exploring acquisitions in other areas, including vertical-market software and new database technology. In a report on that briefing, the analyst firm Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group said it appeared that Oracle was "conditioning [Wall Street] to not be disappointed if the [PeopleSoft] deal doesn't happen, and that it should not be viewed as a negative."