Salesforce Approached By Potential Acquirer? Here Are What Analysts Previously Said

salesforce.com, inc.CRMOracle CorporationORCLInternational Business Machines Corp.IBMAcquisition ‘Certainly Plausible,' But Not LikelySpeaking to Benzinga on April 23, Steve Koening of Wedbush stated that Oracle "has accepted its market share losses in CRM [market], and has accepted the fact that they won't be number one." The analyst argued that should Oracle acquire Salesforce, it would be acquiring a "fairly pricey asset" – likely more so now as shares of Salesforce are noticeably higher than they were on April 23. The spike in shares of Salesforce may also deter Oracle as the company tends to show "reasonable caution" in its merger and acquisition activity, according to Koening. Koening did state that it is "certainly plausible" that Oracle acquires Salesforce, but he has his doubts. On the other hand, the analyst argued that an IBM acquisition of Salesforce is even less believable as IBM would be forced to change all Salesforce applications because they are more acclimated to Oracle's database format versus IBM's. An Acquisition ‘Would Be Complicated' Evercore ISI's Kirk Materne also told Benzinga on April 23 that an acquisition of Salesforce by Oracle "would be complicated" and this scenario is "seriously doubtful." The analyst also added that a combination of Salesforce and Orcale has surfaced periodically over the past decade. Oracle's CEO Blasts Salesforce's Business Perhaps flying a bit under the radar are recent comments made by Oracle's CEO Mark Hurd in which the executive didn't hold back his true thoughts of Salesforce: "It's just a fact: Their earnings, the reason they have a very high earnings ratio, is because they don't make any money.... There's no cash flow. So when you look for a category that says ‘cash flow multiplier,' it says ‘n/a.' What are they worth right now? $35 billion? Who cares? It's absurd. But they're quote-unquote, ‘cool.' And people ask me for real numbers, they ask, ‘Well, what's your cash flow?'... What are we worth right now, $190 billion, $180, something like that? And we have to do it with real numbers. It's crazy, just crazy."