Como se combate o populismo? "Com eleições", responde Fukuyama

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Oracle 1st-Qtr Net Rises 2%; New Sales Miss Forecast (Correct)

(Corrects license revenue to $629 million in seventh paragraph)

By Connie Guglielmo

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp., the world's third- largest software maker, said quarterly profit rose 2 percent as new license sales grew at the slowest pace in more than a year, missing the company's June forecast.

First-quarter net income rose to $519 million, or 10 cents a share, from $509 million, or 10 cents, a year earlier, Redwood City, California-based Oracle said today in a statement. Sales rose 25 percent to $2.77 billion and missed analysts' estimates.

New license revenue rose 12 percent, short of Oracle's prediction of as much as 25 percent. Oracle spent $18 billion buying companies including PeopleSoft Inc. and Retek Inc. to spur sales. Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said yesterday he is counting on acquisitions, including the $5.85 billion purchase of Siebel Systems Inc. last week, to double revenue to $30 billion.

``The acquisitions make a lot of sense and give them great earnings power,'' Pacific Crest Securities' analyst Brendan Barnicle said in an interview today. He rates the shares ``outperform'' and said he doesn't own them.

Oracle shares, down 1.5 percent this year on concern the company is making too many acquisitions, fell 58 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $12.94 in extended trading. They earlier rose 23 cents to $13.52 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.

Sales that don't conform to generally accepted accounting principals were $2.91 billion, missing analysts' estimates of $2.94 billion. Without costs related to the acquisitions, profit would have been 14 cents, meeting the 14-cent average estimate of 35 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

New license revenue for database programs and business applications rose to $629 million.

Hiding Lag

Database software and business-management applications sales are lagging behind rivals, WR Hambrecht & Co. analyst Robert Stimson said before the report.

Oracle will continue to make acquisitions to help double sales from about $15 billion this fiscal year, Ellison said in an interview yesterday in San Francisco, where Oracle hosted 35,000 customers and developers at a conference on the company's plans for the future.

A big acquisition isn't likely for at least 12 months while Oracle digests Siebel and its other purchases, said Ellison, who founded the company 28 years ago.

In the interview yesterday, Ellison named President Safra Catz, who orchestrated the PeopleSoft takeover, as his most likely successor if he ``dropped dead tomorrow.'' Catz would get the job over her fellow co-presidents Charles Phillips and Greg Maffei, the chief financial officer who is presenting his first earnings with Oracle today.

Previous Estimates

Oracle's profit has exceeded analysts' predictions in each of the past four quarters. Of 38 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, 30 recommend investors buy the stock, six suggest holding it and two recommend selling.

Without the purchase of PeopleSoft and Retek, Oracle's so- called ``organic'' revenue growth would have slowed to 8.3 percent this year from 9 percent in calendar 2004, Stimson, who is based in Boston and rates the shares ``hold,'' said before the results were released.

The $10.6 billion hostile takeover of PeopleSoft in January vaulted Oracle to No. 2 in the market behind Walldorf, Germany- based SAP AG.

Oracle plans to buy small, specialized software makers, akin to the $643.3 million acquisition of retail-software maker Retek in April, to expand its business-management software as it works to overtake SAP, Ellison said.

``The key thing about the acquisitions is they have to be immediately accretive and they have to meet our long-term strategic goals,'' Ellison. Those goals include delivering 20 percent profit growth each year and having 40 percent operating margins, he said.

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