Oracle (ORCL) is scheduled to report results of its fourth fiscal quarter after the market close on Tuesday, June 15, with a conference call scheduled for 5:00 pm ET. What to watch for:
1. GUIDANCE: Along with its last report, Oracle guided for Q4 earnings per share of $1.28-$1.32 in U.S. dollars and $1.20-$1.24 in constant currency on revenue growth of 5%-7%. At the time, analysts were expecting the company to report Q4 EPS of $1.28 on revenue of $10.84B, but those figures have since risen to $1.31 and $11.04B, respectively.
2. CAPITAL RETURNS: In addition, Oracle also announced with its last quarterly report that its board had increased the authorization for share repurchases by $20B and declared a quarterly cash dividend of 32c per share of outstanding common stock, reflecting a 33% increase over the current quarterly dividend of 24c. Larry Ellison, Oracle's chairman of the board of directors, Chief Technology Officer and largest stockholder, did not participate in the deliberation, or the vote on this matter, the company noted at the time. This increased dividend will be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on April 8, with a payment date of April 22.
3. RIMINI STREET: On April 1, Rimini Street (RMNI) issued a statement in response to a court order in the decade-long litigation between Rimini Street and Oracle, where the courts have found that third-party support and customization of enterprise software is permitted, Oracle licensees have a choice of support vendors and, as stated by the United States Court of Appeals, Rimini Street provides third-party support for Oracle's enterprise software in lawful competition with Oracle's direct maintenance services. "The court did find that Rimini Street has violated the injunction in certain narrow instances and circumstances, including with respect to two deliverables relating to two specific clients in 2014 and 2015," Rimini said. In response to that statement, Oracle accused Rimini of taking "deceptive business practices" to "new heights," and that the statement was "nothing more than a convoluted attempt at public relations damage control."
4. GOOGLE/SUPREME COURT: Also in early April, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded a prior court's ruling, stating that Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google did not commit copyright infringement when it used Oracle's code in the Android operating system. The Supreme Court's ruling stated that "applying the principles of the Court's precedents and Congress' codification of the fair use doctrine to the distinct copyrighted work here, the Court concludes that Google's copying of the API to reimplement a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, constituted a fair use of that material as a matter of law."
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