Michael Milken, the one-time ‘junk bond king’ jailed in the early 1990s but now apparently a reformed character, continues to build close business ties with Oracle Corp boss Larry Ellison, writes this month’s edition of Computer Business Review. An 18 month old venture backed by the pair, called Nextera Enterprises LLC, made its little noticed opening gambit at the end of July in a strategy designed to build a $1bn consulting organization by the year 2000. As part of a $500m acquisition program, Nextera has picked up Lexington, Massachusetts-based Symmetrix Inc, a 125- person consultancy founded in 1986, which has built up its annual revenues to $18m. This first acquisition comes just five months after the appointment of big-hitting consultant Gresham Brebach as Nextera chief executive officer. Nextera, based in Boston, is just one of the ventures Milken and Ellison are funding from a Los Angeles-based holding company, Knowledge Universe. The group also includes a publishing unit, Knowledge Exchange, and an information technology skills outfit, Education Technology Inc, which a year ago bought a 50.1% stake in UK-based training and consulting firm CRT Group for $169m (CI No 2,971). Education Technology, headed by the former president of Sega Enterprises Ltd’s US operation, Tom Kalinske, also owns a small (less than 5%) stake in Hasbo Co, a major toy company that happens to be run by former Milken associates.
