Janus Henderson Group PLC Acquires 3,125 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 2.5% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 127,739 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,125 shares during the quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $23,846,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 410.3% in the 1st quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have commented on CRM shares. CLSA initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, July 20th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price target for the company. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, June 12th. Finally, Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating and set a $325.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, sixteen have issued a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.51.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $186.20 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average is $170.46 and its 200-day moving average is $184.10. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $152.50 billion, a PE ratio of 21.55, a PEG ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. Salesforce’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $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 forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.