Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison announced on Tuesday that the company is relocating its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee, to be closer to a major health-care hub.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Bill Frist, a former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Ellison mentioned that Oracle is moving a “huge campus” to Nashville, “which will ultimately be our world headquarters.”
He highlighted Nashville as an established health center and a “fabulous place to live,” adding that Oracle employees are enthusiastic about the move.
“It’s the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the health-care industry,” Ellison said.
The announcement appeared to be spontaneous. “I shouldn’t have said that,” Ellison remarked to Frist, a longtime health-care industry veteran who represented Tennessee in the Senate.
The conversation took place during a fireside chat at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville. Shares of Oracle remained mostly flat in extended trading on Tuesday.
Oracle had previously relocated its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, in 2020.
In recent years, the company has made significant inroads into the health-care sector, most notably with its $28 billion acquisition of the medical records software giant Cerner.
Ellison noted on Tuesday that while Oracle is relatively new to health care, the company feels a “moral obligation” to address the industry’s challenges.
Nashville has been a significant player in the health-care sector for decades, boasting a vibrant network of health systems, startups, and investment firms.
The city’s reputation as a health-care hub was solidified when HCA Healthcare, one of the first for-profit hospital companies in the U.S., was founded there in 1968.
HCA’s establishment in Nashville attracted numerous health-care professionals to the city, leading other organizations to follow suit.
According to The Tennessean, Oracle has been developing its new $1.2 billion campus in Nashville for about three years.
“Our people love it here, and we think it’s the center of our future,” Ellison said.
