UPDATED 15:30 EDT / OCTOBER 18 2022

CLOUD

Activist investor Starboard Value buys stake in Salesforce

Activist investor Starboard Value LP has bought a stake in Salesforce Inc., CNBC reported today.

Starboard Chief Executive Officer Jeff Smith told CNBC that the firm’s stake in Salesforce is “significant” but didn’t disclose the value of the stake. Salesforce has a market capitalization of more than $150 billion. Shares of the software-as-a-service company jumped more than 7% at one point today on the news of Starboard’s investment.

The disclosure of the investment comes about a month after Salesforce posted financial results for its fiscal quarter ended July 31. The company generated adjusted earnings of $1.19 per share, which fell short of the $1.48 per share that it had logged a year earlier but surpassed analysts’ expectations. Salesforce’s quarterly revenue of $7.69 billion was also higher than the consensus analyst estimate.

In contrast, Salesforce’s guidance for the current quarter missed both adjusted profit and revenue expectations. The company is projecting an adjusted profit of $1.20 to $1.21 per share on revenue of $7.82 billion to $7.83 billion.

Starboard reportedly bought a stake in Salesforce because it believes that the cloud giant has a “subpar mix of growth and profitability.” In a presentation to investors, the firm stated that Salesforce’s share price “has underperformed its benchmark indices, its closest peers, and the broader market over the last three years.”

Activist investors often propose changes to the business strategy of the companies in which they invest. Those changes, which can include moves such as cost-cutting initiatives, are intended to improve a company’s financial performance and thereby increase its share price. It’s unclear what changes Starboard may seek to implement at Salesforce.  

Previously, Reuters reported on Sunday that Starboard has purchased a nearly 5% stake in Splunk Inc. Nasdaq-listed Splunk provides a popular data processing platform that enterprises use to find and troubleshoot technical issues in their technology infrastructure. The platform is also used for other tasks, such as detecting potential hacking attempts.

Starboard reportedly plans to “push the software maker to take steps” that can increase its share price. It’s currently unclear what specific steps the firm is seeking to implement at Splunk.

Earlier, Starboard bought a stake in cloud-based file storage provider Box Inc. and reportedly pressured the company to explore a sale. The activist investor later made an unsuccessful attempt to oust Box Inc. Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie and two other directors from the company’s board. As of last September, Starboard reportedly maintained a 8.4% stake in the company.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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