Louis Columbus, Cincom
Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWatcher blog published an excellent analysis of how Salesforce.com has apparently, from his sources, approached Oracle to sell the company for $75 a share, almost a 50% premium over the existing share price that Salesforce.com closed at $50.87. Tom’s analysis is outstanding and reads more like an analyst overview than a blog entry.
Speculation of Salesforce.com being for sale has been sporadically mentioned by bloggers and the media, including a prediction by IDC in early 2007 that the company would be sold last year.
Hello Adam,
Thanks for your note.
Ironically preceding this rumor there has been light coverage of Salesforce.com in the investment research community.
I checked all available investment analyst reports and found the best to be from KeyBanc Financial Markets titled Salesforce.com, Bracing for Battle. Published February 1, 2008, the report shows that salesforce.com has strong momentum yet suffers from heavy discounting on Unlimited Edition, and implies Microsoft will become a bigger threat than anticipated.
Going after $75 a share, if true, would give salesforce.com the needed financial support to grow more aggressively internationally and invest even more heavily in their successful development programs. Salesforce.com may see this as a merger to gain access to what they need to growth globally more rapidly. If you or anyone lese is interested in the KeyBanc report, check out the later post on this subject on this blog.
Best Regards,
Louis
Posted by: Louis Columbus | February 11, 2008 at 12:02 AM
I've covered additional stories related to the potential Salesforce.com sale. Take a look at Salesforcetimes.com.
Do you and your readers think this will actually happen or is this just another rumor similar to the possible sale to Google we heard about 6 months ago?
Posted by: Adam Killam | February 10, 2008 at 11:37 PM