First Bancorp Inc ME Invests $452,000 in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

First Bancorp Inc ME acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 2,887 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $452,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $181,143,000 after buying an additional 24,332 shares during the period. SFE Investment Counsel lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 82.7% during the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares in the last quarter. Fluent Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter worth approximately $2,265,000. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the first quarter worth $1,004,000. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 2.5% during the 1st quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 127,739 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,846,000 after purchasing an additional 3,125 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Salesforce News Roundup

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.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Daiwa Securities Group lowered their price objective on Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, June 16th. Scotiabank lowered shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Barclays raised shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Wedbush initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an “outperform” rating on the stock. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $248.72.

Salesforce Trading Down 1.6%

CRM stock opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $176.11 and a 200 day moving average price of $181.49. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $269.11. 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 market cap of $168.50 billion, a PE ratio of 23.81, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16.

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. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

About Salesforce

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.