Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Acquires New Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. acquired a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 83,575 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $13,093,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at $25,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $27,000. Costello Asset Management INC lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 410.3% during 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Gables Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $28,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to see upside: Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed a “buy” rating with a $225 price target, Citizens JMP maintained “market outperform” with a $315 target, and BTIG reiterated “buy” with a $255 target. These targets imply that the recent pullback has created potential valuation upside. Analyst rating updates
• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption and Salesforce’s expanding AI ecosystem are expected to support subscription growth. New integrations from ZoomInfo and Agiloft on the AgentExchange marketplace also suggest that third-party developers are increasingly using Salesforce and Slack AI workflows, strengthening the company’s platform moat. CRM Q2 earnings preview AgentExchange ecosystem
• Neutral Sentiment: Jefferies expects an in-line fiscal second quarter. Its survey of 20 Salesforce partners was moderately encouraging, with 70% reporting results at or above plan, but investors are likely to focus more heavily on management’s second-half growth outlook and Agentforce monetization. Jefferies Salesforce outlook
• Negative Sentiment: The earnings setup leaves little room for disappointment: Salesforce is expected to post roughly 10.6% revenue growth, while analysts want evidence that slower sales growth is reaccelerating. The stock is also testing technical resistance near $210, and broader caution toward technology shares may be limiting buying ahead of the report.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CRM has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $315.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday. BTIG Research reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday. UBS Group boosted their price target on Salesforce from $185.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 12th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Salesforce from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 20th. Finally, Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $248.72.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $168.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.81, a PEG ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. The company’s 50 day moving average is $176.11 and its 200 day moving average is $181.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.58 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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