Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky Buys 57,600 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 44.1% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 188,165 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after buying an additional 57,600 shares during the quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $35,125,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,800,353,000 after acquiring an additional 270,913 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the period. J. Stern & Co. LLP increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during 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 period. Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Salesforce by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.0%

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $163.34 on Monday. 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 12-month low of $146.32 and a 12-month high of $274.00. The company has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a PEG ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 1.18. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $171.89 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $194.02.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.58 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company 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. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently commented on CRM. UBS Group assumed coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an “overweight” rating on the stock. TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Friday, June 12th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $250.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, May 18th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 target price on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $254.42.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

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.