(Reuters) -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 its 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.
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 deal is expected to close in 2022, the company said.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta and Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
