Oracle buys Primavera Systems, its 3d Philly '08 tech buy

Oracle Corp. is snapping up Philadelphia's software companies before they can go public. The California-based business-enterprise giant says it's agreed to buy construction project-software maker Primavera Systems Inc., Bala Cynwyd, its third local takeover of 2008. It won't say what it's paying.
  Primavera chief executive Josh Koppelman will head Oracle's new Project Portfolio Management group, and Oracle will take on Primavera's 400-plus employees. Release here. 
  "With 20% of the world's GDP spent annually on projects, the addition of Primavera is expected to extend Oracle's leadership position in the enterprise application space," Oracle President Charles Phillips said in the announcement. His company's rivals in enterprise software include Newtown Square-based SAP Americas.
  In May, Oracle bought Chester-based insurance software-maker AdminServer, which employed 200, and had been planning to double in size over the next couple of years.
  In July, Oracle agreed to buy Global Knowledge Software LLC, a King of Prussia training- and business-process software division of Cary, N.C.-based Global Knowledge Inc., and combine its product with Oracle Tutor and Oracle iLearning into a single package. . 
  Primavera, which has grown partly by acquisition, reported sales rose 43 percent, to $178 million, in 2007. But that was before the constuction slowdown and difficult financing conditions threatened sales and expansion prospects.
  In 2006,  Primavera said private-equity firms Francisco Partners L.P., Menlo Park, Calif., and Insight Venture Partners, New York, invested $200 million in the firm, founded in 1983. It employed around 300 in Bala Cynwyd and more than 100 in London and at other sites.