Salesforce Acquisition of Informatica Could Be Imminent — Reports

CRM software giant Salesforce is gearing up to acquire Informatica, the enterprise cloud data management and data integration company, according to multiple reports, including in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Both companies said they wouldn't comment on speculation.

The Bloomberg article quoted "people familiar with the matter" who said the deal could come this week.

If it comes to fruition, the acquisition could be worth upward $12 billion-$14 billion, similar to what Salesforce paid for Tableau Software five years ago, which gave Salesforce a boost in business intelligence and analytics software. That's about double what it paid for MuleSoft, which competes with Informatica, back in 2018.

Slack, the cloud-based communications and collaboration platform, is Salesforce's largest acquisition to date, valued at $27 billion. The two companies finalized that deal in 2021.

Permira, the private-equity firm, owns nearly one-half of Informatica. Permira and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board took the company private in 2015 in a deal worth $5.3 billion. They made Informatica a public company once again three years ago.

Wall Street didn't react favorably to the news of a potential acquisition on Monday. Salesforce stock tumbled more than 7%, while Informatica's share price was down 6.5%.

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Salesforce Informatica Buy Would Signal Another Strategy Shift

Curiously, this speculation comes just two years after activist investors pushed Salesforce to focus more on improving profit margins than gobbling up more companies. That, however, was before the explosion of generative AI on the tech landscape, Investor's Business Daily noted, particularly as it pertains to managing data in the cloud.

Such a course change is exactly what has some analysts concerned.

“That does not mean the acquisition would necessarily be bad, but it would likely be both a departure from the company’s focus on margins and a continuing transition away from the company’s core in sales force automation,” wrote Bernstein analyst Mark Moerdler in a note to clients, according to MarketWatch.