NextFin News - Oracle shares fell 11% on Thursday after the software giant said it plans to raise $40 billion through debt and equity financing, reviving investor concern that its push to build artificial intelligence infrastructure is consuming cash faster than many shareholders expected.
The plan includes a $20 billion share sale announced earlier. It comes after Oracle already raised $43 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity in fiscal 2026. The stock is now down about 8% for the year, trailing the Nasdaq’s roughly 9% gain.
Investors focused first on dilution and leverage. The bigger question is whether Oracle’s balance sheet can absorb the cost of competing in AI infrastructure at hyperscale. Capital expenditures jumped 162% in the latest fiscal year to $55.7 billion. New Chief Financial Officer Hilary Maxson told investors that net cash outlay for capex in fiscal 2027 will be around $70 billion, excluding another $20 billion to $25 billion in customer prepayments. Oracle posted negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion in the prior fiscal year.
The quarter itself was solid by standard software measures. Revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter rose 21% to $19.18 billion, ahead of the $19.1 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $2.03, topping the $1.96 estimate. Oracle also kept its fiscal 2027 revenue target of $90 billion and raised its adjusted EPS forecast to $8.05, above the $8.01 Wall Street expected.
What weighed on the stock was the price of that growth. Oracle is telling investors its AI and cloud buildout can support a much larger business, while investors are asking how much capital it will take and what returns it will generate. CEO Clay Magouyrk said on the conference call that Oracle is looking to bring online almost one gigawatt of computing power in the current quarter, roughly the total for fiscal 2026. Even by cloud-infrastructure standards, that is an unusually large increase in capacity. It helps explain why cash burn, not revenue growth, has become the main issue for the stock.
The financing plan shows how management intends to pay for it. Oracle is using both debt and equity rather than relying only on operating cash flow. That approach can make sense when demand is strong and the opportunity is large, but it leaves less room for error. If customer demand, pricing, or utilization rates fall short of expectations, the company would be carrying a heavier capital structure for longer. If demand keeps rising, investors may come to see the financing as a bridge to a much larger business.
Bank of America analysts, who recommend buying Oracle shares, said more than 50% of Oracle’s remaining performance obligation comes from OpenAI. They also pointed to Oracle’s role in the Stargate project, which aims to develop AI infrastructure in the U.S. That suggests Oracle is not adding capacity without committed demand. Still, the bullish case does not change the fact that the stock is increasingly tied to execution at very large scale.
Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson, who described the quarter as mixed on CNBC, has taken the more skeptical view and has long been known for a cautious stance on richly valued technology names. His position is not a market consensus. It is one source’s judgment, but it reflects a concern that tends to grow when capital intensity rises faster than free cash flow. For investors, the question is no longer whether Oracle can grow. It is whether the economics of that growth justify the pace of spending, the need for financing, and the risk that near-term dilution or leverage becomes the cost of long-term expansion.
Thursday’s selloff reflected that calculation. Investors were not reacting to a weak quarter; they were reacting to a larger funding need. Oracle is forecasting strong revenue, higher earnings, and more AI capacity while asking shareholders and creditors to back an infrastructure plan that already exceeds what most software peers would consider normal. The company has not lost the market’s support outright, but the 11% drop showed how much skepticism remains.
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