Salesforce Inc. $CRM Shares Purchased by Investment Management Corp of Ontario

Investment Management Corp of Ontario boosted its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 42.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 78,950 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 23,564 shares during the period. Investment Management Corp of Ontario’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $20,915,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 159.0% in the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,325,206 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,106,255,000 after acquiring an additional 10,636,161 shares during the period. Cardano Risk Management B.V. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 924.7% during the 4th quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 3,883,610 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,028,807,000 after acquiring an additional 3,504,605 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $6,019,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, a customer AI agent platform, reinforcing its push into agentic AI and potentially expanding its automation and customer-service capabilities. Salesforce to acquire customer AI agent platform Fin for $3.6B
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive, with reaffirmed Buy ratings and targets well above the current share price, suggesting potential upside if Salesforce’s AI strategy and cash generation continue to improve. Analyst rating updates
• Neutral Sentiment: UBS reiterated a Neutral rating, reflecting a wait-and-see stance as investors assess whether Salesforce can convert its AI investments into faster growth. UBS sticks neutral
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlighting strong cash flow, rising margins, and a large buyback plan support the view that Salesforce still has financial flexibility to reward shareholders while investing in growth. CRM’s Record Cash Generation Support Robust Shareholder Returns
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple articles raised concerns that Salesforce’s acquisition-heavy strategy may not be translating into sustained growth reacceleration, with some analysts cutting fair value estimates and questioning AI monetization. Salesforce (CRM) Stock Sees Fair Value Cut As Analysts Question AI Growth Path
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary also pointed to “unit economic” concerns and recent share-price weakness, suggesting investors are worried the market is still paying closer attention to execution risk than to the long-term AI opportunity. Salesforce: Putting The Spotlight On The Unit Economic Concerns

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on Salesforce from $300.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. HSBC upped their target price on Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Finally, TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Friday, June 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $259.26.

Salesforce Trading Down 4.2%

NYSE CRM opened at $154.88 on Thursday. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $154.23 and a 12 month high of $276.80. The company has a 50-day moving average of $178.54 and a 200-day moving average of $205.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The company has a market cap of $126.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.93, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.58 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Salesforce Profile

Salesforce, founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a global provider of cloud-based software focused on customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise applications. The company popularized the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for CRM and has built a broad portfolio of products designed to help organizations manage sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics through a unified, cloud-first platform.

Core offerings include Sales Cloud for sales automation, Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing and engagement, and Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.