Salesforce named as early contender for LinkedIn takeover
Salesforce was an early contender in the race to acquire LinkedIn before its aspirations were squashed by Microsoft who muscled in with an offer of $26.2bn.
Citing sources party to the negotiations, Bloomberg reported that Salesforce had been advised by Goldman Sachs in preparing its bid, after LinkedIn executive chairman Reid Hoffman and chief executive officer Jeff Weiner let it be known that they were proceeding with a sale.
Salesforce is a competitor to Microsoft in the field of cloud based software and services and both businesses have long coveted LinkedIn’s trove of workforce data to push their own software.
For this reason, Microsoft has long desired to acquire the social media firm, meaning chief executive Satya Nadella wasted little time in preparing a multi-billion dollar bid when asked if he would be interested by LinkedIn’s management.
Cash rich Microsoft has previously been linked to a possible bid for Salesforce itself but that particular deal never came to pass.