EFG International AG Takes $6.27 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

EFG International AG bought a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 40,021 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $6,270,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $25,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Costello Asset Management INC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 410.3% in the 1st quarter. Costello Asset Management INC now owns 148 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to see upside: Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed a “buy” rating with a $225 price target, Citizens JMP maintained “market outperform” with a $315 target, and BTIG reiterated “buy” with a $255 target. These targets imply that the recent pullback has created potential valuation upside. Analyst rating updates
• Positive Sentiment: Agentforce adoption and Salesforce’s expanding AI ecosystem are expected to support subscription growth. New integrations from ZoomInfo and Agiloft on the AgentExchange marketplace also suggest that third-party developers are increasingly using Salesforce and Slack AI workflows, strengthening the company’s platform moat. CRM Q2 earnings preview AgentExchange ecosystem
• Neutral Sentiment: Jefferies expects an in-line fiscal second quarter. Its survey of 20 Salesforce partners was moderately encouraging, with 70% reporting results at or above plan, but investors are likely to focus more heavily on management’s second-half growth outlook and Agentforce monetization. Jefferies Salesforce outlook
• Negative Sentiment: The earnings setup leaves little room for disappointment: Salesforce is expected to post roughly 10.6% revenue growth, while analysts want evidence that slower sales growth is reaccelerating. The stock is also testing technical resistance near $210, and broader caution toward technology shares may be limiting buying ahead of the report.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on CRM shares. CLSA started coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Monday, July 20th. They set a “hold” rating and a $165.00 price target on the stock. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, August 20th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their target price on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Scotiabank lowered Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $248.72.

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE CRM opened at $205.74 on Wednesday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $176.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $181.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $168.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.81, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $146.32 and a 1 year high of $269.11.

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. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.58 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. 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 payout ratio is 20.37%.

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.