Analyst Says Salesforce (CRM) $8 Billion Informatica Deal Example of Marc Benioff 'Understanding' His Job

Commenting on Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) recent $8 billion acquisition of Informatica (NYSE: INFA), Sarah Kunst, Managing Director at Cleo Capital praised the company’s CEO Marc Benioff and said the deal could pay off.

Marc Benioff understanding his job, which is if he buys something for eight billion and then the stock moves 10 million, 20 billion more up because the street says, wow, they really do know what they're doing in AI, that's a win. I think we saw that with Microsoft and their OpenAI investments where they didn't really need to necessarily be doing that, but when you look at what that has done to their stock price over the last few years, it has been far, far, far more valuable than the cash that they put in to OpenAI. And so I think some of these legacy companies are realizing that, especially in a moment where it's relatively cheap to buy companies. It can be a great way to really get the street to understand your story, that you are serious about this category, whether or not you've been doing it in house already.

Mar Vista U.S. Quality Select Strategy stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“Salesforce, Inc.’s (NYSE:CRM) stock came under pressure in Q1 as investors grew concerned about the potential negative impact of trade tensions and tariffs on the global economy, as well as the current lack of monetization from AI-enabled software solutions. Despite these concerns, we remain confident in Salesforce’s strong competitive position, deep customer relationships, and its ability to monetize AgentForce, its newly launched generative AI-enabled chatbot designed to automate customer service tasks and significantly reduce costs compared to traditional call center support solutions.

As the largest provider of SaaS-based customer relationship management software globally, Salesforce possesses a vast repository of customer data. This data, when combined with generative AI solutions like AgentForce, can be mined for valuable insights and used to deliver enhanced customer outcomes. While AgentForce is still in its initial stages, it has already generated strong interest from both customers and global system integrators. Notably, Salesforce announced that approximately 5,000 customers are currently testing AgentForce, including around 3,000 paying customers. We continue to believe that Salesforce is well-positioned to monetize its AI offerings over time and expect the company to grow intrinsic value at a low double-digit rate.”

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.