The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-02)

** WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020 ~ VOL. CCLXXVI NO. 130 WSJ.com HHHH$4.

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BYAARONTILLEY

Salesforce

Sets Deal

For Slack,

With Big

Premium

Business-software firm

to pay $27.7 billion for

office messaging app,

challenging Microsoft

ileging big investors with sen-

sitive information. Public

diaries show that neither Ms.

Lagarde’s predecessor, Mario

Draghi, nor his chief econo-

mist, Peter Praet, made similar

calls during their last two

years in office.

In 2015, the ECB tightened

its communication rules after

a board member gave a closed-

door speech to investors at a

dinner that revealed changes

to its bond-buying program.

“You don’t just pick up the

phone and talk to the select

few,” said Panicos Demetria-

des, a former member of the

ECB’s rate-setting committee

as head of Cyprus’s central

bank. “Talking only to the big

players is what you’re not sup-

posed to be doing as the cen-

tral bank. It’s not helpful for

relations with the public.”

An ECB spokesman con-

firmed the calls. He said the

bank decided in September

2019 to start the briefings af-

Please turn to page A

Soccer Fans

Rate Players

For Wrinkles

iii

Stars of the 1980s

compete for title

of oldest-looking

BYJAMESHOOKWAY

Back in the 1980s, when he

played goalkeeper for Scottish

soccer side Ayr United, Hugh

Sproat liked to entertain fans

by swinging on the crossbar.

He also grew a thick, bristly

mustache, which this fall made

him a front-runner in a con-

test to see who was the old-

est-looking player before

sports nutrition and ice recov-

ery baths took over the game.

Englishman Winston Gal-

lagher started the tournament

just as much of the U.K. was

heading into its second lock-

down. He was inspired by an

album of old soccer cards he

found that he and other chil-

Please turn to page A

Joe Biden’s economic

team is taking shape with

plans to remake the Trump

administration’s approach to

economic relations overseas,

with a distinction: agree-

ment with President Trump’s

assertion that globalization

has been hard on many

Americans but differences on

how to address it.

The distinction shows Mr.

Trump likely will have a last-

ing impact on the direction

of U.S. economic policy, even

BYJONHILSENRATH

ANDNICKTIMIRAOS

Transition Moves Apace Despite President-Elect’s Injury

ON THE MEND: Joe Biden sported a medical boot in Wilmington,Del., on Tuesday. The president-elect twisted his ankle

over the weekend while playing with his dog Major, his aides said, and was diagnosed with a fractured foot.

ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

though the incoming admin-

istration is trying to alter

important parts of it.

For many years, peaking in

the 1990s, mainstream Demo-

crats and Republicans cham-

pioned globalization and

trade agreements with China,

Mexico and others as devel-

opments that would make

Americans better off. Econo-

mists said that there would

be winners and losers as the

U.S. imported and exported

Please turn to page A

 BlackRock alumni tapped for

new administration................ A

ECB Economist Broke

With Practice on Calls

FRANKFURT—The Euro-

pean Central Bank’s chief

economist made dozens of pri-

vate calls to banks and inves-

tors after policy meetings this

year, breaking with the bank’s

usual practice of delivering in-

formation to everyone at the

same time, according to three

people with whom he spoke

and a review of his schedule.

The calls, which were aimed

at explaining the bank’s public

pronouncements, began in

March, after ECB President

Christine Lagarde flummoxed

traders by suggesting the cen-

tral bank wouldn’t prop up It-

aly’s bond market. Italian

stocks and bonds slumped.

Hours later, Philip Lane, the

chief economist, placed sepa-

rate calls to 11 banks and in-

vestors in which he sought to

clarify the message.

Former central-bank offi-

cials said the calls risked priv-

BYTOMFAIRLESS

ANDPAULJ.DAVIES

cess-card swipes in more than

2,500 office buildings in 10 of

the largest U.S. cities, said

that about a quarter of em-

ployees in those buildings had

Salesforce.com Inc. agreed

to buy messaging company

Slack Technologies Inc. in a

$27.7 billion deal that shows

how the biggest players in

cloud computing are racing to

add muscle amid the pan-

demic’s remote-work boom.

The cash-and-stock deal,

made public Tuesday, is the

biggest move yet by Salesforce

Chief Executive Marc Benioff,

a pioneer in selling subscrip-

tions to software run on re-

mote servers, to turn the com-

pany he co-founded 21 years

ago into a broad-reaching

powerhouse in tech tools for

businesses. The deal is almost

twice as large as Salesforce’s

largest acquisition so far, and

would turn the combined com-

pany into a more formidable

competitor to Microsoft Corp.

and Google parent Alphabet

Inc. The Wall Street Journal

previously reported Salesforce

and Slack were in advanced

deal talks.

The combination also

brings together two of the

tech industry’s highest-profile

CEOs—people who have made

a career of taking on Silicon

Valley icons. Mr. Benioff has

positioned himself as a promi-

nent voice in U.S. business, us-

Please turn to page A

listed companies to have at

least one woman on their

boards, in addition to a direc-

tor who is a racial minority or

one who self-identifies as les-

bian, gay, bisexual, transgen-

der or queer.

Companies that don’t meet

the standard would be re-

quired to justify their decision

in order to remain listed on

Nasdaq.

Banks, asset managers and

lawmakers in California have

taken various steps to diver-

sify the predominantly white

and male boardrooms of U.S.

companies. Nasdaq’s move

could have greater impact be-

cause of its ability to set rules

for the nearly 3,000 corpora-

tions listed on its exchange.

In a review carried out over

the past six months, Nasdaq

found that more than three-

quarters of its listed companies

would fall short of the pro-

posed requirements. Around

80% or 90% of companies had

at least one female director,

but only about a quarter had a

second one who would meet

the diversity requirements, a

person familiar with the review

said, adding it was difficult to

measure because of inconsis-

tencies in the way companies

report such data.

Nasdaq defined underrepre-

sented minorities as individu-

als self-identifying as Black,

Hispanic, Asian, Native Ameri-

can or belonging to two or

more races or ethnicities.

The review found smaller

companies tended to have less

diverse boards and would

Please turn to page A

Nasdaq Inc. is pushing to re-

quire the thousands of compa-

nies listed on its stock ex-

change to include women,

racial minorities and LGBT indi-

viduals on their boards, in what

would be one of the most force-

ful moves yet to bring greater

diversity to U.S. corporations.

The exchange operator filed

a proposal with the Securities

and Exchange Commission on

Tuesday that would require

BYALEXANDEROSIPOVICH

ANDAKANEOTANI

Nasdaq Pushes Diversity Rule

Biden’s Economic

Team Seeks

Global Reset

President-elect’s advisory picks are

circumspect about pitfalls Trump highlighted

returned to work as of Nov. 18.

That rate is up sharply from

an April low of less than 15%,

which largely consisted of

building-maintenance and es-

sential workers. The office re-

turn rate climbed steadily dur-

ing the summer and early fall,

but it has flattened out after

reaching a high point of 27% in

mid-October, Kastle said. The

rate for last week was down

even more sharply than in pre-

vious weeks but likely reflected

the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

“There’s a huge headwind

against company executives to

strongly push their employee

bases to come back to work,”

said Douglas Linde, president

of big office owner Boston

Properties Inc.

Despite the success of work

Please turn to page A

U.S. employees started

heading back to the office in

greater numbers after Labor

Day but that pace is stalling

now, delivering another blow

to economic-recovery hopes in

many cities.

The recent surge in Covid-

cases across the country has

led to an uptick in people re-

suming work at home after

some momentum had been

building for returning to the

workplace, property analysts

said. Floor after floor of empty

office space is a source of

great frustration for landlords

and companies, which have in-

vested millions of dollars in

adapting building plans and

developing new health proto-

cols to make employees com-

fortable with a shared location.

Kastle Systems, a national

security firm that tracks ac-

BYPETERGRANT

Big Cities Face Setbacks

As Office Returns Fall Off

Nov.

17.6%

Percentageof

U.S.workersreturning

totheoffice

Source: Kastle Systems

100

0

Feb. 2020 Nov.

20

40

60

80

%

 Panel advises that health

workers get first vaccines... A

Salesforce.

#1 CRM.

Ranked #1 for CRM Applications based on

IDC 2020H1 Revenue Market Share Worldwide.

19.8%

4.8%

5.3%

3.8%

3.9%

salesforce.com/number1CRM

Marketing Campaign Management, Customer Service, Contact Center, Advertising, and Digital CommerceCRM market includes the following IDC-defined functional markets: Sales Force Productivity and Management,

Applications. © 2020 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce.com is a registered trademark of

salesforce.com,inc.,asareothernamesandmarks.

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020H

Source: IDC, Worldwide Semiannual

Software Tracker, October 2020.

CONTENTS

Arts in Review... A

Business News.. B3,

Crossword.............. A

Heard on Street. B

Markets..................... B

Opinion.............. A15-

Personal Journal A11-

Property Report... B

Sports....................... A

Technology............... B

U.S. News............. A2-

Weather................... A

World News........ A7-

s2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

>

What’s

News

The Justice Department

hasn’t found evidence of

widespread voter fraud that

could reverse Biden’s elec-

tion victory, Barr said, deal-

ing a blow to Trump, who

launched fresh legal claims

to contest the results.A

Barr namedDurham a

special counsel, giving him

protection to continue into

the Biden administration his

investigation of the origins of

the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe.A

A U.S. panelrecommended

that health-care workers and

residents of long-term-care

facilities be the first to receive

any Covid-19 vaccine doses

from the limited supply that

will be available initially.A

Lawmakers releaseda

blitz of competing coronavi-

rus-relief proposals, reignit-

ing stalled talks but with no

clear signs that Democratic

and Republican leaders

would reach a consensus.A

The Treasury’s decision

not to renew a suite of emer-

gency Fed lending programs

spurred a partisan fight over

whether and how the Biden

administration should be al-

lowed to use the programs.A

The SBA releaseddetailed

loan information for mil-

lions of borrowers under

the Paycheck Protection

Program, amid signs of

fraud in the relief effort.A

Trump threatenedto

veto a defense-policy bill if

it doesn’t include language

overturning a provision that

gives social-media compa-

nies broad immunity for the

content they publish.A

China saidit landed a

probe on the moon, its lat-

est space endeavor.A

S

alesforce agreedto buy

messaging company

Slack in a $27.7 billion deal

that shows how the big-

gest players in cloud com-

puting are racing to add

muscle amid the pandemic’s

remote-work boom.A

Nasdaq is pushingto re-

quire firms listed on its stock

exchange to include women,

racial minorities and LGBT

individuals on their boards,

aiming to bring more diver-

sity to U.S. corporations.A

The ECB’schief economist

made private calls to banks

and investors after policy

meetings this year, breaking

with the bank’s usual practice

of delivering information to

everyone at the same time.A

The S&P 500and Nasdaq

hit records, gaining 1.1% and

1.3%, as investor optimism

extended into a new month.

The Dow advanced 0.6%.B

More than halfof U.S. ad

spending is for the first time

set to go to digital platforms,

the world’s largest ad buyer

said, as marketers’ strategy

shifts amid the pandemic.B

HPE is movingits head-

quarters to the Houston

area, the latest sign of how

the pandemic is reshaping

the way Silicon Valley

companies operate.B

U.S. shoppers spent

significantly less than last

year over a five-day holi-

day-weekend stretch that

included Black Friday and

Cyber Monday.B

Airbnb saidit plans to

sell 50 million shares in an

IPO that could give the

company a valuation of as

much as $35 billion.B

Business&Finance

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