Salesforce closes $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack

Yahoo Finance’s Julia La Roche joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the latest as Salesforce closes it’s $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack.

Video transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Well, it was Salesforce's largest ever acquisition, a $27.7 billion monster deal to take over Slack, clearing the hurdles overlooked by the DOJ and now officially closed. And for more on what it takes, what it's going to take to get these companies chugging on all cylinders here now that the deal is officially closed, I want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Julia La Roche with the details around where the companies go post-deal. Julia.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Well, that's right, Zack. Quite the anticipated record deal for Salesforce here, that $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack. And it really speaks to the big bet that Salesforce is making on the future of work, which, as we have talked to CEO Marc Benioff about several times on our air, is one that will be one where you can work anywhere in this all new digital world.

We did get some commentary from Marc Benioff just a few weeks ago on our air as to what this integration with Salesforce might look like on its journey to become not just the number one CRM, but the number one enterprise applications software company. Take a listen.

MARC BENIOFF: But we're going to do one more important and exciting thing is what you're saying is we're going to rebuild all of our technology once again to become Slack first to help our customers have a harness to work in this new world where you're working at home, you're working in the office, you're working at events, you're working anywhere.

JULIA LA ROCHE: One thing I'll note-- it was interesting, in Marc Benioff's annual letter, just kind of giving you a little bit of insight on the integration of Slack and how it's helping Salesforce work well, they were seeing a 26% increase in-- or decrease, rather, a 26% improvement in their case closed time rate for their Service Cloud, which is an interesting stat because when you think about it, when you go across their enterprise applications, what that might mean, but maybe even more importantly, Zack, is, what it will mean for the thousands of customers.

And when you think about Salesforce, wow, they really do know how to sell and sell it in a major way. You have an incredible sales team there. So think about what that could look like when they start to bring some of these applications into Slack. And if you see more companies embrace that more hybrid model of work, it's certainly an area to watch, Zack.

ZACK GUZMAN: I always wondered, too. I mean, you think all the hard work goes into finding a target, getting the deal approved. Now there's the extra hard work of getting the end result improved efficiencies here on the other side of Salesforce combined with Slack, but interesting to see it all come together.

I know, Julia La Roche, appreciate the update there. You're going to be discussing a little bit more here in terms of where these companies go later on, on our air discussion with President and Chief Operating Officer Bret Taylor joining her later on Yahoo Finance here at 3:15 Eastern time. Do not miss that as we continue to learn more about how these companies will integrate with each other.