Brian Nelson

Oracle’s Second Quarter Is a Bright Spot in Tech

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Enterprise technology giant Oracle (click ticker for report: ) reported solid fiscal year 2013 second-quarter results Tuesday afternoon. Revenue jumped 3% year-over-year to $9.1 billion, easily exceeding consensus expectations. Earnings per share, on a non-GAAP basis, jumped 18% year-over-year to $0.64 per share, also better than the consensus forecast. Not surprisingly, the increase was largely driven by a jump in new software licenses and cloud subscriptions of 17%, to $2.4 billion, as the company continues to win new enterprise contracts. President and former HP (click ticker for report: ) CEO Mark Hurd cited share gains versus SAP (click ticker for report: ) in Europe as a strong growth driver, acknowledging that the company only started investing in its European business … Read more

GM Repurchasing Two Hundred Million Shares from the US

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Wednesday morning, US auto giant General Motors (click ticker for report: ) announced that it will repurchase 200 million shares from the US government for $5.5 billion. The US government also announced that it will sell its remaining 300 million shares opportunistically over the next 12-15 months. The sale will leave the US with a loss, but for the purpose of investing, the loss means little to us. Though the price GM will pay—approximately $27.50 per share—exceeds the current market value, it is still lower than our median fair value estimate. More importantly, however, it removes the worry (overhang) that the government-owned shares would be dumped on the market, putting downward pressure on the share price. We like the move for both reasons, … Read more