Salesforce has made more than 60 acquisitions throughout its history, according to a Wikipedia entry. The Slack acquisition is the biggest in Salesforce’s history, based on the US$27.7 billion total value of the deal. The companies expect to complete the acquisition during Salesforce’s fiscal 2022 second quarter, which ends in July 2021. Slack stockholders must approve the deal, which is also subject to regulatory and other customary closing conditions. Salesforce expects to fund the cash consideration with cash from its balance sheet and approximately US$10 billion of proceeds from a combination of the issuance of debt securities and/or term loans. Salesforce has obtained commitments for a US$10 billion, 364-day senior unsecured bridge loan to help cover the cost of the acquisition. Slack shareholders will receive US$26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock (based on the 30 November closing price of US$245.80) for each share of Slack stock. The total enterprise value of the proposed acquisition has been pegged at US$27.7 billion.

Here’s a look at 10 things to know about the Salesforce-Slack acquisition agreement. And then there are the wider implications of how the acquisition will alter the playing field in the competitive Software-as-a-Service arena. There are a lot of details about the acquisition plan itself to dive into, as well as early information about just how Salesforce intends to integrate and leverage the Slack application as part of its cloud software portfolio. The announcement confirmed reports that had been circulating for nearly a week that the two companies were close to a deal. CRM application giant Salesforce Tuesday announced a definitive agreement to acquire collaboration app company Slack for US$27.7 billion.

Salesforce buy slack