Candriam S.C.A. Has $109.83 Million Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Candriam S.C.A. trimmed its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 4.4% in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 588,368 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 27,218 shares during the quarter. Candriam S.C.A.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $109,831,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $27,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CRM shares. Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research report on Tuesday. BTIG Research restated a “buy” rating and set a $255.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Finally, Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.5%

Shares of CRM opened at $163.34 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $171.89 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $194.51. The stock has a market cap of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.18. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $274.00.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

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.