Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc Buys Shares of 66,250 Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc purchased a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm purchased 66,250 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $10,470,000. Salesforce accounts for 2.2% of Foyston Gordon & Payne Inc’s portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% in 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 in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at about $844,928,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Favorable earnings setup: Oppenheimer and other analysts see potential upside from Salesforce’s upcoming results, while market expectations point to a possible post-earnings move toward the stock’s highest level since January. Salesforce Faces Favorable Second-Quarter Setup With Upside Potential How Much Salesforce Stock Is Expected to Move After Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $228 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating and set a $250 target. The calls reflect confidence that Salesforce can capture demand for next-generation AI-powered, “agentic” enterprise workflows. Cantor Fitzgerald Salesforce Analyst Comment
• Positive Sentiment: Growth and capital returns: Zacks characterizes Salesforce as a strong growth stock, while a report highlights a record $27 billion quarterly share repurchase program. Buybacks could support earnings per share and signal that management views the shares as undervalued. Why Salesforce Is a Strong Growth Stock Salesforce Record Stock Buybacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Results are the next catalyst: Analysts are focused on revenue, EPS, and operating metrics for the quarter ended July 2026. Salesforce previously reported $11.13 billion of quarterly revenue, up 13.3% year over year, and EPS of $3.88, above consensus. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Estimates
• Neutral Sentiment: AI platform positioning: Coverage comparing Salesforce with ServiceNow suggests investors are rotating toward enterprise application software as AI investment broadens beyond hardware. Salesforce’s Headless 360 strategy and the Agiloft integration on AgentExchange offer additional evidence of ecosystem expansion. Salesforce Versus ServiceNow
• Negative Sentiment: Risks remain: The buybacks were funded partly with $25 billion of new debt, increasing leverage and interest obligations. Separate commentary questions whether Salesforce could become a value trap if growth slows or AI monetization disappoints. Salesforce Value Trap Analysis

Salesforce Stock Performance

CRM opened at $209.20 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The firm has a market cap of $171.33 billion, a PE ratio of 24.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.16. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $174.33 and a 200-day simple moving average of $181.56. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce’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. As a group, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company 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 was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CRM. Raymond James Financial reiterated a “strong-buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. HSBC upped their price target 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. Bank of America began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, May 18th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price objective on the stock. Wall Street Zen downgraded Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $249.87.

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.