ORCL Oracle Corp

By Jay Greene 

T. Rowe Price Group Inc., which has stood in the way of Oracle Corp.'s $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite Inc., said it would tender its shares in favor of the deal if Oracle sweetens the offer by $2 billion.

In a letter to a special committee of Oracle's board sent late Thursday, T. Rowe Vice President Robert Sharps said that the investment firm would support a deal at $133 a share, up from the $109 a share that Oracle has proposed. T. Rowe said it came to that price based on "the range of conclusions that the financial advisors of the two boards' Special Committees reached in their separate fairness opinions."

Oracle Chief Executive Mark Hurd told CNBC on Wednesday that the company's $109 bid is its "best and final offer."

Last month, T. Rowe, NetSuite's largest independent investor, notified the cloud-software provider that it would oppose the deal, citing conflicts of interest in the deal among its concerns. That led Oracle, earlier this month, to extend its tender offer by a month after having received only about a quarter of the shares necessary from NetSuite's stockholders. That tender offer expires Nov. 4.

Write to Jay Greene at Jay.Greene@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 28, 2016 10:42 ET (14:42 GMT)

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