1. Slack Salesforce Acquisition Company
2. Salesforce Slack Acquisition Close Date
3. Is Salesforce Buying Slack

Enterprise software giant Salesforce.com (CRM) reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday and announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire popular messaging software platform Slack Technologies (WORK).

Salesforce will acquire Slack for $27.7 billion ($26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares), making it the largest ever acquisition for the cloud software giant.

Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack December 01, 2020 Combination of #1 CRM platform with the most innovative enterprise communications platform will create the operating system for the new way to work, enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world. In order to keep pace with Microsoft, Slack needed a bigger enterprise sales team, which they found in tech giant Salesforce, leading to an acquisition I’m quite sure was bittersweet. This strategy makes sense for Salesforce, but there’s another way to look at it. The acquisition of Slack is actually a major admission: legacy CRM architectures are fraying at the edges, and there are more edges than ever before. In the real world, products drive experiences. Related Link: Jim Cramer on Tesla Upgrade, Salesforce’s Slack Acquisition. Why It’s Important: Slack shares are up 89% in 2020, so Wood could be simply taking some profits on this investment.

Salesforce said the deal will be “transformative for customers and the industry” and it will “create the operating system for the new way to work, uniquely enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world.”

“[Slack CEO] Stewart [Butterfield] and his team have built one of the most beloved platforms in enterprise software history, with an incredible ecosystem around it,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in the release.

“This is a match made in heaven. 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. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes,” Benioff added.

Salesforce said Slack will become the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360 and it will be “deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud.”

According to Salesforce, Slack will “transform how people communicate, collaborate and take action on customer information across Salesforce as well as information from all of their other business apps and systems to are more productive, make smarter, faster decisions and create connected customer experiences.”

Slack also plans to expand its footprint through Salesforce, including its customers and other companies going through a digital transformation.

Slack Salesforce Acquisition Company

Slack will continue to be led by Butterfield.

[Read more: Why Salesforce buying Slack for $27.7 billion isn't a shock]

Record Q3 results

For the third quarter, Salesforce reported revenue of $5.42 billion, up 20% year-over-year, beating analysts’ forecasts of $5.25 billion. The SaaS giant reported earnings per share of $1.74, topping forecasts for 75 cents. This is the second consecutive quarter of revenue above $5 billion.

Benioff started Salesforce in 1999, and since that time it’s become one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies in the world with a market cap greater than $219 billion. By 2018, Salesforce was doing $10 billion-plus in annual revenues.

Salesforce raised its fiscal 2021 revenue guidance to $21.11 billion. It initiated its fiscal 2022 guidance, forecasting it to be between $25.45 billion and $25.55 billion, up 21% year over year, with approximately $600 million related to the Slack acquisition.

“No other major enterprise software company is growing at this rate. We’re rapidly moving to an all-digital world, where work happens wherever people are. Our results are being driven by the success of our customers and the relevance of our Customer 360 Platform in this new normal,” Benioff said in the earnings release.

Salesforce Slack Acquisition Close Date

The Slack deal is the latest in a slew of big acquisitions for Salesforce. In June 2019, Salesforce acquired Tableau Software, an analytics and data visualization company, in an all-stock deal for $15.7 billion. A year before that deal, Salesforce acquired Mulesoft, a company that creates application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect different systems, for $6.5 billion.

Other deals include Salesforce’s acquisition of ExactTarget in 2013 and its 2016 acquisition of cloud-based e-commerce services provider Demandware.

Salesforce has looked at other big acquisitions in recent years that didn’t transpire. In 2016, Microsoft edged out Salesforce to acquire LinkedIn in a $26.2 billion deal. That year, Salesforce also considered acquiring Twitter. In his book “Trailblazer,” Benioff wrote that in 2016 he was convinced Salesforce should make a bid for Twitter on the view that the social platform could offer the company’s customers a “treasure trove of data.”

Slack went public via a direct listing in June 2019. Shares of Slack have leaped nearly 48% in the last five days.

Salesforce’s shares fell 3.36% to last trade near $233.83 in the after-hours session. Shares of Salesforce have surged more nearly 50% year-to-date, outpacing the broader market.

Is Salesforce Buying Slack

Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and reddit.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking “I agree” below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.