Salesforce Job Cuts, Big Deals at Stake as Elliott Pushes for Profit

(Bloomberg) -- Salesforce Inc. will probably be urged by activist investors Elliott Investment Management and Starboard Value to cut more jobs, make changes to the board and

spin off big acquisitions in search of greater profit, Wall Street analysts said.  Most Read from BloombergCitadel’s $16 Billion Win Tops Paulson’s Greatest Trade

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Apple’s Upcoming Mixed-Reality Headset Will Work The company, the top maker of customer relations software, has been struggling with slowing growth, executive departures and

investor pressure. The shares have lost half their value since a late 2021 peak, and were in the bottom 10th of S&P 500 stocks last year. Investors greeted the news

Sunday that Elliott had taken a multibillion-dollar stake by sending shares up 3.1% Monday to close at $155.87 — the highest price since the company announced co-Chief Executive

Officer Bret Taylor’s departure on Nov. 30. Salesforce said earlier in January that it would eliminate about 10% of its workforce, which had increased more than 60% in

almost three years to about 80,000 employees by the end of October 2022. Some of that growth came from multiple acquisitions, including the 2021 takeover of business chat

application Slack for more than $27 billion. Elliott’s presence as an activist investor reduces concerns that co-founder Marc Benioff might make impulsive mergers to invigorate

growth as the sole CEO in the wake of Taylor’s exit, wrote Jordan Klein, an analyst at Mizuho Securities.