Oracle to buy Cerner for $28.3bn in healthcare sector push

BENGALURU: Enterprise software maker Oracle Corp said on Monday it would buy electronic medical records company Cerner Corp for $28.3 billion, in a bid to strengthen its presence in the healthcare sector.

Cerner shareholders will receive $95 in cash for each share they hold, representing a premium of 5.8% to the company’s closing price on Friday.

The deal, which will be Oracle’s biggest ever after its acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2004, will help the software maker bolster the services it provides to healthcare clients, including insurers.

Cerner, the biggest seller of software used for electronic recording of healthcare data in the United States after Epic Systems Corp, will give Oracle access to data it can use to train and improve its artificial intelligence-based cloud services.

With Cerner, which already has its largest business and a clinical system already on the Oracle Database, Oracle aims to provide healthcare professionals with digital tools that enable access to information through a hands-free voice interface to secure cloud applications.

Oracle said it expects the deal to add to revenue growth as it expands Cerner’s business into more countries. Cerner is expected to be accretive to earnings on an adjusted basis in the first full fiscal year and contribute “substantially more” thereafter.

After the deal closes, likely in 2022, Cerner will be organized as a dedicated industry business unit within Oracle, the company added.

Since the pandemic began, demand for cloud-based solutions in the healthcare sector has picked up pace, including telehealth services as well as automation of health records.

The boom has also led to enterprise software companies signing more deals in the health sector, such as Microsoft Corp’s $16 billion buyout offer of Nuance Communications Inc and PE firms Hellman & Friedman LLC and Bain Capital’s deal to buy Athenahealth for $17 billion this year.