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Activist Investor Starboard Value LP has acquired a stake in Salesforce (NYSE:CRM). Starboard Value is presenting at the 2022 Active-Passive Investor Summit today. The activist investor sees a “compelling set of investment opportunities for high-quality and fast-growing companies.”
The hedge fund’s CEO Jeff Smith said he sees a significant opportunity in Salesforce with shares of the software maker down 42%. Smith didn’t disclose the exact size of the stake except that it is significant. Shares of Salesforce are up over 6% on the report after gaining 3.5% yesterday.
“Salesforce has an opportunity to significantly grow free cash flow per share over the next few years,” it said in Starboard’s presentation.
Alongside Salesforce, Smith also discussed an attractive investment opportunity in Wix.com (NASDAQ:WIX), which “has significant upside potential,” as well as Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK), which soared 5.5% yesterday on the WSJ report yesterday that Starboard has a near 5% stake in the company.
“While we believe that there is substantial value that can be created from improving growth and profitability, we also believe that Splunk is a highly strategic asset that could be attractive to a number of different strategic and financial buyer.”
The WSJ report said the activist investor is reportedly pushing Splunk’s board to make changes.
Starboard has a 9% stake in WIX. As of Q1 2020, the hedge fund managed about $6.2 billion.
