Salesforce in Talks to Acquire Informatica, WSJ Reports
(Bloomberg) -- Salesforce Inc., the top maker of customer relations software, is in advanced talks to acquire Informatica Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.
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Informatica, based in Redwood City, California, had a market value of about $11.4 billion at the close Friday in New York. The shares have jumped 36% this year to $38.48. The company, which helps customers manage their data in the cloud, projected in February that fiscal-year revenue would increase about 6% to $1.7 billion.
Salesforce has cut costs and improved profitability over the past year after activist investors pressed the company to run a tighter ship. Now, the focus is on sales growth, which has slowed as corporations rein in their spending on software.
In the past, Salesforce Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff often acquired companies to spur growth. Informatica would rank as the company’s third- or perhaps second-biggest acquisition out of 117 deals, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Salesforce’s largest acquisition — a takeover of the business communications platform Slack Technologies for about $27 billion — was completed in 2021. Should the Informatica deal go through, the amount would rival Salesforce’s $14 billion purchase of Tableau Software Inc. in 2019, according to the data.
A Salesforce spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on “rumors and speculation.” Informatica couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
--With assistance from Michael Hytha.
(Updates with comments from company in the fifth paragraph.)
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