"$27.0 billion - database titan continues to buy up would-be competition- more than 40 acquisitions in the past 4 years. bought bea systems (nasdaq: beas - news - people ) for $8.5 billion in january. revenues up 25% to $22.4 billion this year- profits up 29% to $5.5 billion. stock down 12% in past 12 months. invested $125 million in web software outfit netsuite- took public in december, stock promptly dropped 30%. his shares still worth $500 million. chicago native studied physics at u. of chicago, didn't graduate. started oracle in 1977. public 1986, a day before microsoft. owns 453-foot rising sun- built a smaller leisure boat because superyacht is hard to park. squabbling in court with swiss boating billionaire ernesto bertarelli over terms of next america's cup. recently unveiled"
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