the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, this is starting to smell like the 1980’s . Salesforce is facing pressure from activist firm Elliott Management. The move has Salesforce employees worried about potential additional layoffs beyond those already announced. Elliott’s involvement could result in the ousting of Salesforce’s board of directors, divestment of acquisitions like Slack, MuleSoft, and Tableau, and an end to remote-work policies. Salesforce board members have to be reelected every year, a fact that may be exploited by investors at the next shareholder’s meeting.
In the 1980s,bad management and poorly run companies led to “Hostile Takeovers” that became all the rage. Corporate Boards lived in fear of “corporate raiders” like Carl Icahn. For example, in 1988, there were no less than 160 unsolicited takeover bids for U.S. companies. The hostile takeover became the defining symbol of U.S. style capitalism, encapsulated in the 1987 movie classic “Wall Street”.