CastleKnight Management LP Lowers Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

CastleKnight Management LP lessened its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 52.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 31,900 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 34,900 shares during the quarter. CastleKnight Management LP’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $8,451,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. 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: Salesforce announced a $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, a customer AI agent platform, reinforcing its push into agentic AI and potentially expanding its automation and customer-service capabilities. Salesforce to acquire customer AI agent platform Fin for $3.6B
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive, with reaffirmed Buy ratings and targets well above the current share price, suggesting potential upside if Salesforce’s AI strategy and cash generation continue to improve. Analyst rating updates
• Neutral Sentiment: UBS reiterated a Neutral rating, reflecting a wait-and-see stance as investors assess whether Salesforce can convert its AI investments into faster growth. UBS sticks neutral
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlighting strong cash flow, rising margins, and a large buyback plan support the view that Salesforce still has financial flexibility to reward shareholders while investing in growth. CRM’s Record Cash Generation Support Robust Shareholder Returns
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple articles raised concerns that Salesforce’s acquisition-heavy strategy may not be translating into sustained growth reacceleration, with some analysts cutting fair value estimates and questioning AI monetization. Salesforce (CRM) Stock Sees Fair Value Cut As Analysts Question AI Growth Path
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary also pointed to “unit economic” concerns and recent share-price weakness, suggesting investors are worried the market is still paying closer attention to execution risk than to the long-term AI opportunity. Salesforce: Putting The Spotlight On The Unit Economic Concerns

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on CRM. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $281.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Canaccord Genuity Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $225.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday. UBS Group reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. Finally, Mizuho lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $259.26.

Salesforce Trading Down 4.2%

NYSE CRM opened at $154.88 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $178.54 and a 200-day simple moving average of $205.28. The firm has a market cap of $126.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.93, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $154.23 and a one year high of $276.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The firm’s revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.58 earnings per share. 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 anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.