Salesforce deal to buy Slack expected to be announced tomorrow after market close
Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive officer of Salesforce.com speaks during the grand opening ceremonies for the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco on May 22, 2018.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salesforce’s deal to buy Slack is expected to be announced Tuesday after markets close, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.
The deal is expected to be about half cash and half stock, the sources said, and will price Slack at a premium to its current price. Salesforce is set to report quarterly earnings on Tuesday.
Shares of Slack rose about 8% Monday on the news. Salesforce shares fell about 1.5%.
Talks between the two companies were first reported last week by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by CNBC, sending Slack’s stock soaring 38%.O
Salesforce has made several large acquisitions in recent years, including its $6.5 billion deal for MuleSoft in 2018 and $15.3 billion deal with data visualization company Tableau.
The deal with Slack could become one of the largest software deals. IBM bought Red Hat for $34 billion in 2019 and Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $27 billion in 2016.
It could also make Slack a more formidable competitor to Microsoft’s Teams communication product. Slack filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission this summer, alleging it abused its dominant market position to eliminate competition for Teams. Microsoft has said Teams has benefited during the pandemic from video-conferencing capabilities that Slack lacks.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
