Salesforce to Buy Enterprise Software Firm Slack for $27.7B; Marc Benioff Quoted

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) has agreed to purchase Slack Technologies (NYSE: WORK) for approximately $27.7B in a strategy to create a unified technology platform for enterprise collaboration and communication.

As part of the deal, Slack stockholders will get $26.79 cash plus 0.0776 shares of Salesforce’s common stock for each share they own, the San Francisco-based customer relationship management company said Tuesday.

Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce, said the combination looks to “shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.”

The CRM technology provider expects to complete the acquisition in the second quarter of its 2022 fiscal year, pending regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

Slack, led by Stewart Butterfield, will operate as a unit of Salesforce upon closing of the transaction and work as an interface for the latter’s cloud-based Customer 360 offering.

The combined entity aims to establish an open ecosystem of business applications and workflows to support customers’ digital transformation initiatives.

BofA Securities and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz serve as Salesforce’s financial adviser and legal counsel on the deal, respectively.

Qatalyst Partners and Goldman Sachs & Co. provide financial advice to Slack during the transaction, while Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter offer legal counseling to the software company.

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