Salesforce.com on Sept. 21 acquired the cloud services company Assistly to expand the reach of its cloud computing platform. Its stock price dipped after reports of alleged insider trading by its CFO.
Salesforce.com acquired Assistly for approximately $50 million, and the company also assumed Assistly’s unvested options and will issue restricted stock units to certain Assistly shareholders.
Salesforce.com CFO Graham Smith sold 1,500 shares of company stock on Sept. 16, and with shares priced at $135.17, netted $202,755 from the transaction. Although that news was reported today, Smith has made a number of other trades since late August that appear to all have been in his favor, and had a particularly interesting trading day on Sept. 14.
No charges have been filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to these trades, but Sept. 14 was a very profitable trading day for Smith and a volatile day for Salesforce.com’s stock, according to data compiled by Reuters.
The company’s acquisition of Assistly didn’t prevent the stock from closing down about $4 on the New York Stock Exchange Sept. 21. However, the CEOs of both companies were enthusiastic about the business combination in a statement released the same day.
Assistly enables clients to interact with consumers in real time across a number of channels, including social media, Web chats, email and phone calls through a single interface based in the cloud. Salesforce.com focuses on cloud computing CRM.
