Oracle continues to build its cloud platform, with the latest bricks coming from its proposed acquisition of Aconex Limited for $1.2 billion. Australia-based Aconex provides a cloud-based platform to manage collaboration for construction projects.

Oracle is offering $5.99 per share for Aconex, which is a 44 percent premium over the company’s closing price prior to the acquisition being announced on December 17. The Aconex board of directors has approved the deal, which is expected to close during the first half of 2018.

Aconex’s operations will be added to Oracle’s current Construction and Engineering Cloud platform. Combined, Oracle will provide end-to-end project management for construction projects.

A McKinsey report from last year found construction-technology firms have generated $10 billion in investment funding since 2011.

Aconex in August reported a 31 percent increase in full-year revenues, surging from $94.7 million in 2016, to $123.7 million in 2017. However, the company earlier this year saw its stock price plunge 45 percent in one day following the lowering of revenue forecasts tied to worldwide political changes.

Early investors in Aconex included Silicon Valley-based Francisco Partners, which sold its stake when Aconex went public in late 2014.

Oracle’s stock was trading down slightly early Monday, while the overall New York Stock Exchange was trading up around 1 percent.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison last week was boisterous about the company's cloud operations during Oracle’s second fiscal quarter 2018 conference call. In countering concerns over Oracle’s cloud platform, Ellison said market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) had spent $50 million during the quarter on Oracle databases and technology.

Along with the name-dropping, Oracle announced significant gains in its cloud business for the quarter. Unfortunately, those gains were not up to expectations, which sent the company’s stock into a funk.

“We think a major concern for investors is the long-term growth of cloud revenue, particularly the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business, given the revenue miss and lower guide,” wrote BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman in a research note. The firm lowered its projected fiscal year 2019 cloud revenue growth for Oracle from 28 percent to 22 percent.

Oracle last year purchased NetSuite for $9.3 billion. NetSuite provided SaaS enterprise resource planning (ERP) software used to track inventory and manufacturing processes, and perform accounting tasks. The company competed with the likes of SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft.