Salesforce reporting after the bell today Mark Benyoff may be facing his biggest

test in the company's 24-year history no less than six activist investors are

circling different stakes different interests. Faber reporting this morning that talks with Elliot did not resolve their concerns so there's likely

to be a proxy battle.

Something that all these activists are focused on, lack of margin growth.

Serum's margins, they look bad next to its peers and they look even worse

when you dig into how Bennyoff's been spending over the last few years, which the journal in fact did do.

To name just a few here, $50 million for the annual Dream Forest Conference,

U-2 concerts, a 75-acre wellness retreat owned by the company,

and of course that $10 million salary for Matthew McConaughey who participated in high-level meetings.

You could argue it sounds a little more peak.

We work then enterprise software, but all of that is easier to overlook when revenue growth is accelerating as it has through much of the company's history.

Tonight though, CRM is expected to report further decelerating top-line growth that has fallen into these single digits. The first activist

in Starboards Jeff Smith calls this a sub-part mix of growth and profitability.

As you get bigger and bigger you can't keep growing as fast and you have to drop more to the bottom line and when you add those two things together

You get to a number and as it turns out with their peers

The median number is around 50% adding growth rate and profit margins.

They, as a great company, they really should be at that number or higher and they're not

So instead of better margins over the years investors they have seen a string of very expensive acquisitions that have been highly dilutive and

Carl and Melissa they could be targets they could be acquisitions that have been highly dilutive.

And Carl and Melissa, they could be targets.

They could be things that activists push to be spun off.

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