Employees Retirement System of Texas Has $9.26 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Employees Retirement System of Texas lifted its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 139.5% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 39,073 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 22,758 shares during the quarter. Employees Retirement System of Texas’ holdings in Salesforce were worth $9,260,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Brighton Jones LLC raised its position in Salesforce by 13.7% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $8,582,000 after acquiring an additional 3,102 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in Salesforce by 12.6% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $611,000 after acquiring an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 9.0% during the 4th quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $747,000 after purchasing an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $807,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 5.2% during the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,781,000 after purchasing an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Salesforce

In other news, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total value of $929,259.10. Following the sale, the director owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. This trade represents a 34.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 1,936 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $258.64 per share, for a total transaction of $500,727.04. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 10,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,761,499.28. This trade represents a 22.15% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 3.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on CRM shares. Macquarie Infrastructure upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $400.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. DA Davidson reduced their price target on Salesforce from $235.00 to $200.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 27th. Oppenheimer decreased their price target on Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Bank of America cut their price objective on Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, November 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $282.06.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Strong recent fundamentals and AI momentum bolster investor confidence—analysts and coverage pieces note Salesforce’s robust fiscal 2026 results and rising AI-driven demand that supported recent gains. CRM Stock Up More Than 5% in a Month: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold?
• Positive Sentiment: Product/GTMS initiatives: Salesforce is pushing contact-center modernization with Agentforce, which could drive upsells in Service Cloud and contact-center spend. Salesforce Aims to End the ‘Frankenstein’ Contact Center With Agentforce
• Positive Sentiment: Partner and integration momentum—third-party vendors (e.g., LivePerson, Cloudsquare integrations) are emphasizing Salesforce as the CRM backbone, which supports platform stickiness and ecosystem revenue. LivePerson Announces Event-driven Orchestration Partnership with Coral Active
• Positive Sentiment: Management outreach to investors: recent presentations at Morgan Stanley highlighted record fiscal 2026 performance and strategic priorities for 2027, helping sentiment. Salesforce (CRM) Presents at Morgan Stanley’s Conference, Here’s What You Need to Know
• Neutral Sentiment: Capital markets execution: Salesforce priced an underwritten offering of senior notes (aggregate $25B) with proceeds earmarked for buybacks—a definitive move but execution/terms will determine impact. Salesforce Prices Public Offering of Senior Notes
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces and competitor comparisons (Oracle, ServiceNow) highlight that Salesforce remains a cloud/AI market leader, but growth comparisons show mixed near-term organic trends. What If You Had Invested $1,000 in Oracle or Salesforce 10 Years Ago?
• Negative Sentiment: Tepid demand and higher yields on the $25B bond package have surfaced—reports show investor hesitation and higher required yields, signalling market concern about the leverage and pricing of debt-funded buybacks. Salesforce Sees Tepid Demand for Bond Sale to Fund Share Buyback
• Negative Sentiment: Credit and analyst pressure: rating agencies reacted to the buyback/debt move and some brokers issued downgrades or pessimistic forecasts—this increases financing costs and adds near-term downside risk. Salesforce Weighs Debt Funded Buybacks And Partner Cloud Against Valuation
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst downgrade and bearish notes have pressured sentiment, with some reports calling for lower near-term price targets. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Stock Price Down 2% on Analyst Downgrade

Salesforce Stock Up 2.3%

CRM stock opened at $198.68 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $183.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a 50-day moving average of $211.70 and a two-hundred day moving average of $235.53. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $174.57 and a 52-week high of $296.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The business had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.78 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. This is a boost from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 21.25%.

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.