Microsoft Looking at Big Acquisitions (Again)
Microsoft may make more large acquisitions than it has done historically and become a more distributed company as opposed to moving key employees to its Redmond, Washington, headquarters, Chief Financial Officer John Connors said this week.
Although Microsoft has decided to return a significant piece of its $60.6 billion cash hoard to shareholders and not pursue a takeover of German ERP (enterprise resource planning) giant SAP, large acquisitions are likely to increase, Connors told an audience of Silicon Valley businesspeople at an event organized by the Churchill Club.
"I think there is a probability that we will do more large deals than we have done historically. There are not many SAPs out there, but there is the potential that we could do a few big ones, but not likely that big," Connors said. A big deal would be an acquisition valued over $1 billion dollars, Connors indicated.
Microsoft's discussions with SAP were disclosed in June at the beginning of a trial over Oracle's hostile takeover of rival PeopleSoft. The talks ended after Microsoft decided the deal and the post-union integration would be too risky. SAP is valued at about $50 billion, based on Monday's closing price on the New York Stock Exchange.
