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CNBC EXPLAINS

Analysts See Acquisitions in Oracle's Future

Published: Monday, 19 Sep 2011 | 4:02 PM ET

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By: Margo D. Beller
Special to CNBC.com

With Oracle earnings expected after the bell Tuesday, two analysts told CNBC Monday they expect CEO Larry Ellison to start spending the company's $30 billion war chest on more acquisitions.

Nat Burgess, president of Corum Group, said the obvious first choice would be Hewlett-Packard [HPQ Loading... () ]. HP's former CEO is now a co-president of Oracle [ORCL Loading... () ].

"If anyone can herd HP into Oracle it’s Mark Hurd, who ran HP and who had a lot of plans he never got to execute on," Burgess said. "HP is wildly undervalued and would be synergistic with Oracle."

SAP [SAP Loading... () ] would be another obvious choice, but the German company is valued higher and there would be a high antitrust hurdle to surmount, he added.

But there are also smaller companies Oracle can snap up.

Ellison races sailboats, Burgess said, and "looks for incremental advantage and looks to steal his competitors’ wind. We think he’s got to be looking at telephony" where Oracle isn't strong. That's why Burgess likes Interactive Intelligence [ININ Loading... () ] as an acquisition target.

In the same interview, Joel Fishbein, of Lazard Capital Markets, said Oracle doesn't need HP or SAP but should become more aggressive in "an emerging area of cloud computing, where you’re delivering software over the internet as opposed to a standalone basis." He did not name specific companies.

Lazard has a buy rating on Oracle stock and a $40 price target.

Hear Fishbein's previous comments on cloud computing here.

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Disclosures:

Neither Joel Fishbein nor Lazard own Oracle shares. Disclosure information was not available for Nat Burgess or his company.

Disclaimer