KBC Group NV Buys 125,788 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

KBC Group NV increased its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 11.5% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,222,004 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 125,788 shares during the period. Salesforce accounts for 0.6% of KBC Group NV’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 25th largest position. KBC Group NV’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $228,111,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,800,353,000 after buying an additional 270,913 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its position in shares of 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. Capital International Investors grew its stake in Salesforce by 13.3% during the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Salesforce by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after acquiring an additional 791,345 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on CRM shares. Bank of America began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, May 18th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price target for the company. Citigroup raised shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. DA Davidson lowered their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their target price on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, BTIG Research restated a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.3%

Shares of CRM opened at $171.20 on Monday. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $146.32 and a 1 year high of $274.00. 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 stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $170.64 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $190.67. The firm has a market cap of $140.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82, a P/E/G ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.58 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce Company 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.