Larry Ellison’s Net Worth Falls $11 Billion as Oracle Plans to Raise $20 Billion
Aadhya Tibrewal, Jadetimes Staff
Larry Ellison’s net worth fell by an estimated $11 billion on Monday, 2 November, as Oracle shares reached a four-month low. Forbes Australia reported on 3 November that the Oracle co-founder’s fortune had dropped to about $160 billion by Monday afternoon, when the company’s shares were down around 8.5%. The decline followed Oracle’s filings outlining plans to raise $20 billion through stock and bond sales. Ellison remained eighth on Forbes’ real-time billionaire list at the time of the report.
The sell-off came after several months of weakness in Oracle’s stock. By Monday afternoon, the shares had fallen more than 30% over six months, according to Forbes. That made the financing announcement significant for investors who were already weighing the cost of Oracle’s cloud expansion. The company had reported fast-growing demand for computing power, but building enough capacity to meet that demand requires substantial spending. The November filings put a figure on how much more capital Oracle planned to raise.
Oracle proposed raising $10 billion through common stock and $10 billion through bonds. Investors who buy common stock become part-owners of the company. When Oracle issues new shares, an investor who keeps the same number of shares can end up owning a smaller percentage of the business. Investors who buy bonds lend money to Oracle. The company must pay interest and repay the amount borrowed according to the terms of the issue. Oracle’s plan draws on both groups of investors, with different costs and obligations attached to each part.
The preliminary bond prospectus, dated 2 November, listed proposed fixed-rate bonds due in 2029, 2031, 2033, 2037 and 2046, along with floating-rate notes due in 2029. The longer-dated bonds would give Oracle more time before it has to repay that part of the debt. Fixed rates give the company a known interest cost once pricing is set, while the interest on floating-rate notes can change with a benchmark. The preliminary document left the final interest rates blank, so investors reading it could see when the proposed debt would come due while the full cost of borrowing remained unsettled.
The filings listed several possible uses for the money, including capital spending, debt repayment, future investments and acquisitions. Oracle also listed dividends and share repurchases among the possibilities. That gives management flexibility to use the funds for new investment or existing financial commitments. Cloud infrastructure is a major part of the company’s investment programme, but the filings did not specify how much of this particular financing would go toward data centres or computing equipment.
Oracle had already turned to the stock market for funding earlier in its 2027 financial year. In September, it said it had completed $20 billion in common-stock sales before commissions during the first quarter. It sold those shares through an at-the-market programme, which lets a company sell stock over time at prevailing market prices. The November proposal was a separate financing plan. The earlier sale raised money entirely through shares, while the new proposal divides the planned amount equally between stock and debt.
Oracle’s September results help explain the scale of the investment. The company reported $19.3 billion in quarterly revenue, up 30% from a year earlier. Its cloud infrastructure revenue reached $7.4 billion, up 121%. Oracle also said it had delivered 850 megawatts of additional data centre capacity during the quarter. Its cloud infrastructure business sells access to computing power and storage. To serve more customers, Oracle has to secure facilities, power and equipment. Some of that spending comes well before customers can start using the capacity.
The cash figures show what that expansion meant during the quarter. Oracle reported $23 billion in operating cash flow, a measure of the cash its operations generated. Its free cash flow was negative $5 billion after accounting for capital spending. The company attributed the negative figure to continued investment in cloud infrastructure. This helps explain how a company can report rapid revenue growth and still need outside funding. Oracle brought in substantial cash from its operations, but its investment spending during that quarter exceeded the amount those operations generated.
Oracle also reported $664 billion in remaining performance obligations, up $209 billion from a year earlier. That figure covers work customers have contracted to buy that Oracle has yet to record as revenue. It helps show the size of future demand, while the timing of revenue depends on when Oracle delivers the contracted goods or services. In September, the company said it had booked more than $30 billion in additional AI cloud contracts and that the way it structured those agreements did not add to its existing plans to raise capital. That statement referred to those contracts. The November filings outlined a broader range of uses for the proposed financing.
Oracle’s next results will provide another point of comparison. In September, management forecast 30% to 34% revenue growth for the second quarter of its 2027 financial year and expected at least $90 billion in revenue for the full year. Investors can compare actual sales with those forecasts and track how much cash remains after spending on facilities and equipment. A rise in revenue tells them how much more business Oracle is doing. The cash figures help show how much money it takes to sustain that growth.
For Larry Ellison, the effect of Monday’s sell-off was visible within hours. Forbes valued his holdings using market prices at the time of its estimate, so a fall in Oracle shares reduced the value it assigned to his fortune even without a sale by Ellison. Oracle’s financing will play out over a longer period. The terms it secures, the projects it funds and the cash those projects generate will show whether its rapidly growing cloud business can support the cost of expanding it.
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