Salesforce is no longer interested in making a bid for Twitter, which means the troubled firm may not be sold after all, although its advisers are still seeking other potential bidders.
Earlier this month it was reported Twitter wanted to conclude negotiations about its potential sale before 27 October, when it reports its Q3 earnings.
By then Google and Walt Disney were already out of the running. Salesforce was probably the last company that was still mulling an acquisition.
“In this case we’ve walked away. It wasn’t the right fit for us,” Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“You’re going to look at price, you’re going to look at culture, you’re going to look at everything,” he added.
The report said Benioff was under pressure from shareholders and investors, as they wanted to know why a company that sells sales enterprise software wanted to buy a troubled internet company.
A venture capital investor close to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Salesforce’s decision may put an end to speculation of a sale and help Dorsey focus on a strategy to bring back user growth at the company, Reuters reported.
The Salesforce pursuit of Twitter came after it lost out to Microsoft in acquiring LinkedIn.
Twitter was seeking a sale after struggling to grow its user base for more than year, and remains loss making.
It is thought to be valued at $16 billion.
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