Reports surfaced last week that tech giant Oracle was considering a pricey acquisition of Accenture – reports which have since been strenuously denied by Big Red.
The acquisition rumour first surfaced after sources cited by The Register said that a team of consultants were conducting due diligence in order to “explore the synergies that could be created if they (Oracle) bought Accenture lock stock and barrel.”
READ MORE: Is Oracle looking to acquire Accenture?
As the rumour mill kicked into hyper-drive many pointed to the huge amount of money Oracle may have to potentially stump up to acquire the consultancy giant, with Accenture’s market cap hovering around the $78bn mark. However, Oracle has since issued a statement, putting the rumour to bed.
“”The Accenture rumour is completely untrue. Never even considered it. Completely made up,” said Oracle spokeswoman, Deborah Hellinger.
Although Oracle has a long history of acquiring firms, most recently NetSuite for $9.3bn, the majority of its acquisitions have hovered around the $10bn mark and below, with the PeopleSoft deal in 2005 being the largest at $10.3bn.
When talk of the acquisition surface many sceptics pointed to the fact that Accenture was already a long-time Oracle partner, with the benefits of such an acquisition unclear in light of the current relationship between the two companies. Sceptics also highlighted that Accenture is not only partners with Oracle, but with almost every other tech giant – significant business which could be threatened by an Oracle acquisition.
However, those sitting on the other side of the fence pointed to rivals such as IBM, which strengthened its offering with its own consultancy acquisition with the 2016 acquisition of Bluewolf.
