Oracle’s Cerner Purchase Given EU Antitrust Blessing

Oracle’s multi billion acquisition of an American health IT services provider has received the green light from European competition officials.

It was in December last year that Oracle confirmed reports it was to acquire Missouri-based Cerner, for $95.00 per share, or approximately $28.3 billion in equity value.

Cerner is a supplier of health IT services, and is best known as an electronic medical records provider in the United States.

Healthcare move

The deal is the most expensive of any Oracle’s 125 plus acquisitions it has made since it was founded in 1977.

It will also give Oracle access to a huge quantity of healthcare data, and will increase the number of healthcare customers using its cloud platform.

Oracle on Wednesday announced that “ all required antitrust approvals have been obtained for its proposed acquisition of Cerner, including European Commission clearance.”

The European Commission reportedly said it did not have any competition concerns about the deal because there are no overlaps between the companies.

Also the merged company would not have the ability to shut out rivals

“Oracle expects to complete the tender offer promptly following the expiration of that offer at midnight Eastern time on 6 June 2022,” the enterprise software giant said.

“Working together, Cerner and Oracle have the capability to transform healthcare delivery by providing medical professionals with a new generation of healthcare information systems,” said Larry Ellison, Oracle chairman and CTO.

“Better information enables better treatment decisions resulting in better patient outcomes,” said Ellison. “Our new, easy-to-use systems are designed to lower the administrative workload burdening our medical professionals while improving patient privacy and lowering overall healthcare costs.”

“Healthcare is the world’s largest and most important vertical market – $3.8 trillion last year in the United States alone,” said Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle. “We expect Cerner to be a huge growth engine for years to come.”

Oracle acquisitions

It is fair to say that Texas-based Oracle has a reputation as being a highly acquisitive company.

Indeed, it is said to have acquired over 125 companies since it was founded in 1977.

Some of its most expensive purchases are listed below.

Oracle has previously acquired Peoplesoft for $10.3 billion in 2005; Siebel Systems for $5.8bn in 2006; Hyperion Corp for $3.3bn in 2007; BEA Systems for $8.5bn in 2008; Sun Microsystems for $7.4bn in 2009; Micros Systems for $5.3bn in 2014; and NetSuite for $9.3bn in 2016, to name but a few.