Several high-profile pieces of merger and acquisition (M&A) news have emerged in recent days, but one of the less hailed entries is for relationship management software maker HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), which is starting to heat up as a third potential suitor looks to step in. As a result, HubSpot shares gained just over 2% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
Earlier reports suggested that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) was interested in picking up HubSpot, likely as a potential addition to its growing slate of web services. So is Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), which probably has similar aspirations. That alone is quite a slate of interested parties, but the arrival of a potential third party only heats things up. That party is currently unnamed, but apparently, interest is sufficient that HubSpot’s advisers are now looking to sell off the company via a straight-up auction.
More Reason to Buy In
One point that may have particularly drawn the attention of these web services giants is HubSpot’s recent integration with LinkedIn. HubSpot hasn’t always had such a connection to the popular relationship management platform, which had left it on the back foot against its competitors. But the combined efforts of HubSpot Smart CRM and LinkedIn Sales Navigator have given it a whole new edge.
The ability to better share data between the two platforms, as well as improve organization and focus, may be just the thing that users need to pull more value out of the market. It also makes for a reasonable explanation as to why Google and Amazon are so interested.
Is HubSpot Stock a Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on HUBS stock based on 19 Buys, one Hold, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 9.96% rally in its share price over the past year, the average HUBS price target of $678.94 per share implies 19.11% upside potential.
