Sources say Salesforce will appoint three new independent directors to ease the pressure on investors
On the evening of January 27, Beijing time, according to reports, people familiar with the matter said today that Salesforce will appoint three new independent directors to the company's board of directors to ease pressure from activist investors.
Mason Morfit Moffet, CEO and chief investment officer (CIO) of activist investor ValueAct Capital, Arnold Donald, former CEO of Carnival, and Sachin Mehra, chief financial officer (CFO) of Mastercard, will join Salesforce's board, according to people familiar with the matter.
As a result of the appointment, Salesforce board members and former Hasbro CEO Alan Hassenfeld (Alan Hassenfeld) and Sanford Robertson (Sanford Robertson) will not run for re-election at the AGM.
After five years of rapid hiring and large-scale acquisitions, including the $27.7 billion acquisition of enterprise communications application Slack,Salesforce in 2021, there is growing pressure to improve profits and shareholder returns.
In addition to ValueAct Capital, activist investors Elliot Investment Management (Elliott Investment Management) and Starboard Value also own shares in Salesforce. It is unclear what ValueAct Capital's CEO, Moffet, means for other activist investors to join the board.
Earlier this week, Wall Street analysts said Elliott and Starboard Value might urge Salesforce to cut more jobs, reform its board and spin off some of the companies it acquired in pursuit of higher profits.
Salesforce announced a restructuring plan earlier this month, including about 8000 job cuts by 10 per cent, aimed at reducing operating costs, improving operating margins and boosting profits.
