Activist Starboard Value Ups Stake in Salesforce by Nearly 50%
Activist investor Starboard Value increased its stake in Salesforce by almost 50% during the second quarter of the year, according to a filing. It’s a sign that Salesforce could face renewed pressure to make changes to its business, three years after Starboard and other activist investors managed to get co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff to hold off on big acquisitions and take other steps to improve sales growth and profitability.
Benioff has Salesforce focused on Agentforce, an AI product it launched last fall to help customers automate customer service and other business functions, but customer adoption has been slowed by technical glitches and cost concerns. In February, former Chief Financial Officer Amy Weaver said the company expected “modest” sales of Agentforce over the next year.
Meanwhile, Salesforce shares are down nearly 27% since the start of the year. Revenue growth dropped to 9% in the year to January and the company expects growth to slow further to between 8% and 9% this year. While Benioff and his team have cut costs through multiple rounds of layoffs and consolidating layers of management, more belt-tightening measures may be coming.