Oracle Expands Cloud-Based Utilities Push With Opower Acquisition
Oracle ( ORCL ) will pay $532 million to acquire Opower ( OPWR, ) a cloud-based software provider that says it’s used by 100 utility companies for meter reading services for homes and businesses. Opower says its Big Data platform stores and analyzes more than 600 billion meter reads from 60 million utility end-customers, enabling utilities to meet regulatory requirements, decrease the cost to serve, and improve customer satisfaction. Opower became a publicly traded company two years ago and reported revenue of $148.7 million in 2015, up 16%. Oracle will pay $10.30 per share in cash for Opower, which will be integrated into the Utilities Global Business Unit of Oracle. According to an Opower news release, it is a leading provider of “mission-critical cloud services to utilities.” The price represents a 30% premium to Opower’s Friday closing price of 7.90. Opower stock hasn’t traded above 10.30 since early this year. Its shares were up 31% in early trading in the stock market today , near 10.30. Oracle stock was up a fraction, near 40. The acquisition follows the $663 million deal last week that Oracle reached to acquire Textura ( TXTR ), a leading provider of construction contracts and payment management cloud services. Oracle will pay $26 per share in cash to acquire Textura, paying a 31% premium on that company’s stock.