Salesforce finds itself in a rather unusual situation, with four activist investors simultaneously active within the company: Elliott Management, Starboard Value, ValueAct and Inclusive Capital. Experts suggest that it is exceptional to have so many activist investors involved at the same time in a large technology company like Salesforce.
What do these people want from Salesforce, which is hardly in dire straits? Sure, the stock is down, but Salesforce pulled in $8 billion last quarter.
But that could be exactly why the investors are so interested – because they believe that anything they think is wrong can be fixed pretty quickly and anyone can make a lot of money without much hassle.
That may or may not be the case. When you have four strong personalities involved in the same game, even if their end goal is in sync, how do you get them all to work together to align CEO Marc Benioff and the board of directors? And let’s not forget that Benioff has a pretty strong personality himself.
If the investors have different opinions about what’s wrong with Salesforce, it can create an opening for Benioff to negotiate, something activist investors usually don’t like to do. Instead, they like to dictate terms and position themselves—usually by winning board seats—to make sure the company does what they want. Salesforce announced three new board members last week, including ValueAct CEO and chief investment officer Mason Morfit.
But with four companies, who gets additional board seats? Who is negotiating these changes? Do they work together or do they break up? It’s an interesting exercise in teamwork. Can these investors share responsibility without driving each other crazy?
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