Salesforce finds itself It’s a rather unusual situation to have four activist investors in the company at the same time: Elliott Management, Starboard Value, ValueAct and Inclusive Capital. Experts suggest it’s unusual for a major technology company like Salesforce to have so many activist investors on board at once.
What do these people want from a Salesforce that’s barely out of sheer pain? Sure, the stock is down, but Salesforce made $8 billion last quarter.
But maybe that’s why investors are so intrigued. Because they believe that anything they think is wrong can be fixed quickly and everyone can make a lot of money without fuss.
Maybe so, maybe not. When you have four powerful personalities involved in the same game, how do you get them all working together to align CEO Marc Benioff and the board with them, even if their end goals are aligned? And let’s not forget that Benioff himself has a pretty strong personality.
If investors disagree about what’s wrong with Salesforce, Benioff may have an opportunity to negotiate. This is something that activist investors usually don’t like. Instead, they prefer to dictate terms and positions, usually by securing board seats, to ensure the company can do what they want. Salesforce announced last week his three new board members, including ValueAc CEO and Chief Investment Officer Mason Morfit.
But if there are four companies, who gets the extra board? Who negotiates these changes? Will they work together or will they fall apart? An interesting exercise in teamwork. Can these investors share responsibility without driving each other crazy?
