Salesforce to buy data protection provider Own Company for $1.9 billion

(Reuters) -Salesforce said on Thursday it would buy Own Company, a provider of data protection and management solutions, for $1.9 billion in cash to accelerate growth of its data security and privacy products.

The acquisition comes at a time when customers are increasingly focused on mitigating data loss due to system failures, human error, and cyberattacks.

Salesforce said it expects to achieve accretion on a free cash flow basis starting in the second year following the closing of the deal, which it anticipates to be in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.

There is no anticipated change to the enterprise cloud firm's fiscal year 2025 forecast and the deal will not impact its capital return program, Salesforce said.

Own has raised more than $500 mln in total funding from BlackRock, Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global, among others, and has partnered with ServiceNow and Microsoft Dynamics 365, according to its website.

Salesforce on Tuesday said it has agreed to acquire Tenyx, which develops artificial intelligence-powered voice agents, to advance its AI-driven solutions, without disclosing the deal value.

Last year, under pressure from activist investors, Salesforce announced plans to double its share buybacks and shift away from acquiring more companies after disbanding its mergers and acquisitions committee.

The California-based company is now looking at acquisitions to re-accelerate its revenue growth.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Maju Samuel)