Friday, September 21, 2007
Billionaire activist Carl Icahn raised his stake in software maker BEA Systems (NYSE:BEAS) to nearly 10 percent, according to a Schedule 13D/A filing with the SEC. The activist investor first disclosed an 8.5 percent stake last week in a Schedule 13D filing in which he said shares were undervalued and that he planed to meet with management to discuss a possible sale of the company.

BEAS Systems has been a rumored takeover target for a great time and the company has repeatedly insisted that it is not for sale. Consequently, many analysts are skeptical as to whether Icahn will be able to force a sale of the company unless he takes a larger stake and installs his own directors to the company's board.

BEA Systems is provider of enterprise application and service infrastructure software. BEA has three primary families of products. The Tuxedo product family provides multi-language enterprise platform. The BEA WebLogic product family provides Java developers application infrastructure software for building Web applications, Web services, business processes and portals, and application integration.

In the end, there are several potential suitors for a company with products like these; however, the company has insisted that it wasn't for sale. It will be interesting to see whether or not Icahn will be able to force a sale and unlock value. This makes BEAS a stock worth watching!

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