Salesforce Inc. $CRM Holdings Boosted by Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc.

Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc. raised its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 11.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 564,855 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 60,045 shares during the quarter. Salesforce accounts for 1.7% of Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 21st biggest holding. Letko Brosseau & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $129,674,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of CRM. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at $11,396,844,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in Salesforce by 130.2% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after buying an additional 7,160,302 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE raised its position in Salesforce by 28.0% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 11,724,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,188,666,000 after buying an additional 2,561,923 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $927,332,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth about $844,928,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $217.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $236.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $198.42. The company has a market capitalization of $178.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.24.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The company had revenue of $11.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.91 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 17th were issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.04%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,416,936.57. The trade was a 45.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 4,176 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 18th. The shares were bought at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the purchase, the director owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at $4,486,958.84. This represents a 28.66% increase in their position. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CRM has been the subject of a number of research reports. KeyCorp assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, October 12th. They set a “sector weight” rating for the company. Wall Street Zen downgraded Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Argus increased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 31st. Deutsche Bank started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, October 12th. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 3rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have issued a Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $278.98.

Salesforce Company Profile

Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud-based software company best known for customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Its platform helps businesses manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce and customer data, and includes products such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud and Agentforce. The company also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data analytics and visualization, and MuleSoft for connecting applications and data. Salesforce’s products are used by organizations across a range of industries and are available to customers around the world.