Hemenway Trust Co LLC Sells 42,657 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Hemenway Trust Co LLC cut its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 83.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,373 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 42,657 shares during the quarter. Hemenway Trust Co LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $2,218,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of CRM. Marquette Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the third quarter valued at about $28,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In related news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.62 per share, for a total transaction of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 13,689 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,664,153.18. The trade was a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Launch of Agentforce Operations — Salesforce rolled out Agentforce Operations, a suite of specialized AI agents designed to automate complex, cross-system back‑office workflows. Investors see this as a meaningful productization of AI that could expand higher‑margin services and drive upsell across large enterprise accounts. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Deeper Google Cloud & ChatGPT integrations — New Google Cloud workflow integrations and enhanced ChatGPT-for-CRM capabilities let automated agents operate across multiple enterprise systems and LLMs, which can accelerate real‑world adoption and make Salesforce’s AI story more defensible versus pure-play rivals. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains constructive — The average brokerage recommendation sits at “Buy,” and coverage notes the strategic pivot and product launches as catalysts that could justify upside versus current multiples. That endorsement supports near‑term demand for the stock. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Valuation check & comparisons — Several pieces assess CRM’s valuation vs. peers (including a CRM vs. SPOT comparison) and highlight that while upside exists from AI-driven revenue, the stock’s forward multiples require execution to justify a higher valuation. Useful for re‑rating scenarios, but not immediate catalysts. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Industry context — Coverage noting large tech layoffs and where AI economics live is background risk/benefit context; it matters to margins and adoption timing but is not Salesforce‑specific. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Intensifying competition — Reports emphasize escalating AI‑agent rivalry with Microsoft and ongoing cloud competition with Oracle; larger rivals could pressure win rates, pricing, or margin expansion if deals tilt toward hyperscalers. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Recent price weakness — Commentary notes a sizable YTD share decline (reflecting earnings, macro and re‑rating risk). That keeps investor sensitivity high: strong execution on Agentforce and integrations is required to sustain a re‑rating. Article Title

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. KeyCorp cut their price objective on Salesforce from $400.00 to $300.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Salesforce from $235.00 to $210.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on Salesforce from $250.00 to $215.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 14th. Finally, UBS Group cut their price objective on Salesforce from $260.00 to $200.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $279.18.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.8%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $187.05 on Wednesday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $186.70 and its two-hundred day moving average is $219.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. Salesforce Inc. has a 1-year low of $163.52 and a 1-year high of $296.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $153.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.95, a PEG ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 1.14.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The company had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.18 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.78 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 9th. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 22.54%.

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.