German American Bancorp Inc. Takes Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

German American Bancorp Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 23,623 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,701,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Brighton Jones LLC increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 13.7% in the 4th 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 during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 12.6% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $611,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC lifted 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 boosted its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during the second quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $807,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Finally, United Bank grew its stake in Salesforce by 5.2% in the second 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 during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have commented on CRM. KeyCorp downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Barclays upgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. HSBC boosted their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “equal weight” rating and set a $185.00 target price (down from $287.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, May 18th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price target on the stock. Two investment 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $195.86 on Monday. 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 capitalization of $160.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.67, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $171.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $181.95.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. Salesforce’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies more than 24% upside from recent levels. JPMorgan bullish Salesforce coverage
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its Salesforce price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating. UBS and Wells Fargo also reportedly forecast strong appreciation, reinforcing improving sell-side sentiment. Monness Crespi Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s Agentforce platform is gaining traction, giving the company a way to use its large CRM customer base to compete with Microsoft and Oracle in enterprise “agentic” AI. Salesforce agentic AI analysis
• Positive Sentiment: A Seeking Alpha analysis argues that Salesforce’s $27.1 billion share-repurchase program, equivalent to an estimated 23% net buyback yield, could support earnings-per-share growth. The stock also appears inexpensive at roughly 14 times forward earnings, although buybacks have increased debt. Salesforce buyback analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce has recently posted strong momentum, with reports noting three consecutive weeks of gains and substantial one-month appreciation. That run may be encouraging investors, but it also raises the possibility of profit-taking.
• Negative Sentiment: Parnassus Investments indicated that Salesforce has lost favor as AI opportunities shift toward competing or substitute technologies. Other commentary likewise warns that alternative software and AI-native tools threaten Salesforce’s traditional CRM franchise. Salesforce AI competition concerns

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.