The Elliott-Led Activist Skirmish With Salesforce Lured Hedge Fund Investors

As of the end of the first quarter, several big name hedgies had piled into the stock, turning into a hedge fund hotel. Elliott wasn’t among them.

Illustration by II

Illustration by II

When Elliott Management said it had taken a multi-billion dollar stake in software giant Salesforce on January 23, it appeared that Salesforce CEO and cofounder Marc Benioff might be in for a bruising activist battle. Even when Salesforce announced days later that it had reached an agreement with another shareholder activist — ValueAct Capital — to put its CEO and CIO Mason Morfit on the Salesforce board, Elliott was still readying a slate of directors in anticipation of a proxy battle.

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