It’s Official: Salesforce Buying Slack For $28 Billion, Taking On Microsoft With Benioff’s Biggest Deal Yet

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TOPLINE

After nearly a week of speculation, Salesforce confirmed its intent to acquire popular workforce chat platform Slack in a deal valued at $27.7 billion on Tuesday, marking the enterprise cloud giant's largest-ever acquisition and positioning it to compete more forcefully with the nation's second-largest tech firm by market capitalization, Microsoft.

KEY FACTS

In an announcement accompanying the firm's third-quarter earnings release, Salesforce said it'll offer Slack shareholders $26.79 in cash and nearly 0.08 Salesforce shares for each share of Slack they own, representing an enterprise value of $27.7 billion (or $45.54 per Slack share) based on Monday’s market close. 

“This is a match made in heaven,” Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said Tuesday. “Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.”

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives on Tuesday described the transaction as "both an offensive and defensive move for Salesforce in its quest to further penetrate the enterprise cloud shift" that's currently dominated by Microsoft.

Salesforce shares fell 3% in after-market trading within minutes of the announcement; they ended Tuesday down 1.8% and have soared nearly 45% this year, compared to 36% for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

The firm also reported third-quarter results that blew past Wall Street expectations, including record revenue of $5.4 billion, compared to $5.3 billion expected, and earnings per share of 83 cents, beating average estimates by more than 10%.

Last Wednesday, a Dow Jones report that Salesforce was in talks to acquire Slack sent shares of the business communication app soaring 25% toward rumored acquisition levels; Slack stock, which has nearly doubled in price this year, climbed 2% on Tuesday.

CRITICAL QUOTE

"Despite facing stiff competition from Microsoft, Slack has been a clearly successful solution set penetrating enterprises and thus looks like the natural fit for Salesforce to beef up its collaboration and messaging footprint–and keep pace with [Microsoft's] cloud dominance," Ives said Tuesday. "If Salesforce wants to expand into enterprise and beyond its core gold mine of sales and marketing departments, this was the moment," he adds, noting that the move "represents a major shot across the bow against Microsoft."

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