S&CO Inc. Buys New Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

S&CO Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 2,839 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $444,000.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of CRM. J. Stern & Co. LLP grew its holdings 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 worth $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in Salesforce by 130.2% during the 1st quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after buying an additional 7,160,302 shares during the period. Cardano Risk Management B.V. boosted its position in 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 buying an additional 3,504,605 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors grew its holdings in Salesforce by 13.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies more than 24% upside from recent levels. JPMorgan bullish Salesforce coverage
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its Salesforce price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating. UBS and Wells Fargo also reportedly forecast strong appreciation, reinforcing improving sell-side sentiment. Monness Crespi Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s Agentforce platform is gaining traction, giving the company a way to use its large CRM customer base to compete with Microsoft and Oracle in enterprise “agentic” AI. Salesforce agentic AI analysis
• Positive Sentiment: A Seeking Alpha analysis argues that Salesforce’s $27.1 billion share-repurchase program, equivalent to an estimated 23% net buyback yield, could support earnings-per-share growth. The stock also appears inexpensive at roughly 14 times forward earnings, although buybacks have increased debt. Salesforce buyback analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce has recently posted strong momentum, with reports noting three consecutive weeks of gains and substantial one-month appreciation. That run may be encouraging investors, but it also raises the possibility of profit-taking.
• Negative Sentiment: Parnassus Investments indicated that Salesforce has lost favor as AI opportunities shift toward competing or substitute technologies. Other commentary likewise warns that alternative software and AI-native tools threaten Salesforce’s traditional CRM franchise. Salesforce AI competition concerns

Analyst Ratings Changes

CRM has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Monness Crespi & Hardt increased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $222.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Piper Sandler downgraded Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM stock opened at $195.86 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $171.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $181.95. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The firm has a market capitalization of $160.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.67, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business 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 research analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.