Slack’s Stock Soars 31% on Potential Acquisition by Salesforce

Slack, the popular work messaging platform, could be sold to Salesforce as early as next week, according to multiple reports on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news, and CNBC followed up afterwards. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the WSJ said the deal would likely be worth more than $17 billion.

The news sent Slack’s stock price rocketing 31% higher to nearly $39 per share. Those gains pushed Slack to a market cap of $22.1 billion. Salesforce’s investors didn’t appear as excited about the news, however, with the San Francisco-based company’s share price dropping 5% after the news came out. Even with the drop, Salesforce is still up 47% on the year and is worth about $225 billion.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC the deal would be a “game-changer” for Salesforce and CEO Marc Benioff because it would “further build out its collaboration engine and product footprint as cloud spending ramps up across the enterprise.”

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Salesforce was founded 21 years ago and has established itself as a powerhouse in the business world via its cloud-based work software. The company has been spending big bucks in recent years, including acquiring data-analytics company Tableau Software for $15 billion last year. Its potential Slack acquisition would be the most expensive in the company’s history, based on Slack’s market cap.

Read original story Slack’s Stock Soars 31% on Potential Acquisition by Salesforce At TheWrap