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Mergers are supposed to help companies grow. And $8 billion mergers sound really big on the surface. But what about when the acquirer has a market capitalization of $265 billion already? This is not meant to be a recap of the merger story where Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) is acquiring Informatica Inc. (NASDAQ: INFA). The view that Tactical Bulls wants to know is what exactly Salesforce is getting for this $8 billion buyout of Informatica.

For starters, the merger or acquisition should be considered a follow-on deal. Well, maybe. The approximate $8 billion in equity value is said to be “net of Salesforce’s current investment in Informatica.” Under the terms of the agreement, holders of Informatica’s Class A and Class B-1 common stock will receive $25 in cash per share. Informatica had closed at $19.20 the day before rumors of the merger broke again.

Did Salesforce just tip its hand that its imminent earnings report would be strong? Salesforce is set to release its first quarter (2026) results on Wednesday, May 28, 2025 after the market closes. Would it be in good faith or bad faith to spend $8 billion to acquire a company and then deliver a horrible earnings report less than 36 hours later? Just remember that no outsider can predict corporate earnings (and the market’s reaction to guidance) without being inside the story.

What was the tie-up already? On May 14, 2025, it was announced that Informatica and Salesforce’s Agentforce were expanding their partnership to deliver AI-driven customer intelligence with a new Agentforce integration. That same day, Informatica announced that it was unveiling agentic AI offerings on its AI-powered cloud data management platform. This was a new enterprise service offering to build, connect and manage intelligent AI agent workflows. Informatica’s new CLAIRE Agents were called “the next evolution in autonomous data management” with a general availability of the CLAIRE Copilot for data integration and application integration.

Was this deal new or a rekindled merger? And just last week, Informatica’s stock soared after Bloomberg reported that Salesforce was in talks to buy Informatica. Salesforce closed down 3.6% at $273.13 on the news, but Informatica shares rose 17% to close at $22.55. The deal may not be all that new though. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported in April-2024 that merger talks between the two had fizzled out as Salesforce and Informatica were not able to agree on terms after holding merger discussions.

Is this really a good deal for Informatica shareholders and for Salesforce shareholders? If Salesforce is buying Informatica now, Benioff has likely been eyeing the company for some time. Companies are currently doing whatever they can to have agentic-AI offerings. And the deal may actually be on the cheap — Informatica’s pre-merger price of $22.54 is against a 52-week range of $15.65 to $31.65. And Informatica was nearly a $40 stock in April-2024 in late-2021 after debuting on October 26, 2021 in an IPO at $29.00 per share.

Will prior shareholders stick around or be gone? This transaction will represent a final and complete exit after private equity ownership. CPP Investments (under the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) and entities associated with Permira Funds took Informatica private in a $5.3 billion cash transaction. At the point of the IPO, CPP held 36.6% and Permira held 62.2% of the outstanding shares heading into the 2021 IPO. Informatica has held secondary offerings for existing shareholders to sell shares since the IPO.

Are partnership integrations easier? Upon the merger’s closing, Salesforce will integrate Informatica’s technology stack that includes data integration, quality, governance, and unified metadata for Salesforce’s Agentforce. It will also represent a single data pipeline with MDM on Data Cloud that embeds a system of understanding into the Salesforce ecosystem. Salesforce has also said that it will support Informatica’s AI-powered data management products across any cloud, hybrid, or multi-cloud environment.

What growth will Salesforce actually be adding? The merger is being financed by Salesforce’s cash on hand and the issuance of new debt. It is expected to be accretive on a non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP earnings per share, and free cash flow basis starting in the second year after the mergers closes. The company also sees substantial cost synergies and expects a revenue uplift with a new comprehensive data portfolio. And lastly, this transaction is being represented to not disrupt Salesforce’s capital return program.

Is this Goliath and David in revenues? Salesforce is already a Dow member. Its market cap is $266 billion and its Fical-2025 revenue was $37.9 billion. Wall Street analysts are expecting an average growth of 7.7% to $40.8 billion in Fiscal-2026 and then 8.9% growth to $44.45 billion in Fiscal-2027. Informatica is profitable Its sales growth is expected to be 3% to $1.69 billion in 2025 and 4.8% growth to $1.77 billion in 2026.

Who said it best in the companies? While CEO quotes can be interesting to read for overviews, it is often what a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has to say that matters the most for what an acquiring company is winning. Steve Fisher, President and Chief Technology Officer of Salesforce, said:

“Truly autonomous, trustworthy AI agents need the most comprehensive understanding of their data. The combination of Informatica’s advanced catalog and metadata capabilities with our Agentforce platform delivers exactly this… Imagine an AI agent that goes beyond simply seeing data points to understanding their full context — origin, transformation, quality, and governance. This clarity, from a unified Salesforce and Informatica solution, will allow all types of businesses to automate more complex processes and make more reliable AI-driven decisions.”

Well, that’s it in a nutshell.

PLEASE NOTE: Tactical Bulls does not have any formal price targets of its own and does not maintain any formal ratings on the companies in this report. This should not be interpreted as investment advice and it is not intended to represent a recommendation to buy or sell any securities of the companies named.