Salesforce: Valuation Is the Toughest Hurdle in M&A Deals Now | AI Daily Brief
Audio in Mandarin Chinese · English transcript below
⚡ Alex Xiu breaks M&A into three tiers: strategic fit and customer value; whether it accelerates business, integrates with tech stack, and team chemistry; and shareholder returns plus valuation. The first two filter through customer feedback and thousands of companies reviewed yearly. The third is now hardest because everything's expensive. He believes unsustainable valuations will eventually correct—and when a truly compelling target emerges, he'd rather watch and wait long-term.
The competition for premium targets has shifted from strategic screening to valuation endurance. Strategic fit and technological synergy are merely table stakes for acquisition; the real bottleneck now lies in the difficult balancing act between shareholder returns and sky-high valuations. When Salesforce opts to keep coveted targets under prolonged watch rather than rushing to strike, it signals that unsustainable valuations are deterring buyers, and the large-scale consolidation by strategic capital has entered a cooling-off period.
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He breaks M&A into three layers: strategic fit and customer value; whether it accelerates business, integrates with tech stack, and team chemistry; and shareholder returns and valuation. The first two filter through customer feedback and reviewing thousands of companies annually; the third is now hardest because everything is expensive. He believes unsustainable valuations will eventually correct, and he'd rather watch a truly compelling company for the long term.
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