Oracle Corp. has set a hard deadline of Nov. 4 for shareholders in NetSuite to accept or reject its $9.3 billion offer to purchase the cloud financial software maker. That puts the pressure on T. Rowe Price, an 18% shareholder in the company, to accept a deal it has so far rejected. The mutual fund firm contends that Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s 40% stake in NetSuite prevented NetSuite from negotiating a fair price.
T. Rowe Price may come to regret its stance. Growth in NetSuite’s recurring revenue from software subscriptions, the most important metric, slowed to 26% in the most recent quarter, from 34% in March of last year. That suggests NetSuite needs Oracle a lot more than Oracle needs NetSuite.