Written by Anirban Sen
(Reuters) – Salesforce is in advanced talks to acquire business software maker Informatica, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential, said an agreement could be announced soon.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the talks between Salesforce and Informatica, said the deal price is below Informatica's current stock price of $38.48.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the WSJ report. Permira declined to comment.
Informatica is based in Redwood City, Calif., and counts companies such as Unilever and Deloitte among its customers. The market capitalization is approximately $11.35 billion.
Founded in 1993, Informatica provides subscription-based data management services on the cloud and also helps more than 5,000 active customers automate tasks.
Informatica was taken private in 2015 by a consortium that included private equity firm Permira Advisors Inc. and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about $5.3 billion.
It has been six years since we were relisted on the NYSE. Permira and CPPIB currently have more than 75% control of Informatica.
In early 2023, Salesforce was the target of activist investors pushing for changes that would cut costs and increase stock buybacks. The company had disbanded its M&A board committee as part of a series of actions taken since activist investors including ValueAct Capital and Elliott Management acquired Salesforce stock.
Some activists had expressed concerns about the takeover, demanding that the company increase its growth rate and profit margins and increase stock buybacks.
In 2020, Salesforce bought Slack Technologies, a workplace messaging app, in a $27.7 billion deal, betting on the long-term nature of remote work.
The San Francisco-based cloud computing pioneer has historically had a strong interest in trading and investing. Slack was Salesforce's biggest acquisition. The company acquired data analytics platform Tableau Software in 2019 in an all-stock deal valued at $15.7 billion.
(Reporting by Uruvi Dugar, Utkarsh Shetty and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)
