Salesforce Inc. $CRM Shares Sold by Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC

Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC cut its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 81.0% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 142,282 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 604,923 shares during the period. Salesforce makes up 0.8% of Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 28th largest position. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $37,692,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $181,143,000 after acquiring an additional 24,332 shares during the period. SFE Investment Counsel raised its position in Salesforce by 82.7% in the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $307,984,000 after purchasing an additional 106,107 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Salesforce by 2.4% in the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,328,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,025,791,000 after buying an additional 101,191 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eminence Capital LP raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $196,837,000 after acquiring an additional 43,888 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded Salesforce to buy from neutral and set a $200 price target, citing valuation appeal and potential AI-driven upside. Read More
• Positive Sentiment: Truist reiterated confidence in Salesforce after its $3.6 billion Fin acquisition, viewing the deal as another step in expanding its AI automation and customer-agent capabilities. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Multiple articles highlighted Salesforce as a long-term growth stock, with analysts pointing to its AI platform, Agentforce, and ongoing product expansion as reasons for optimism. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest AI and acquisition story continues to attract attention, including coverage of the Fin deal and a new partnership announcement, which could support the long-term growth narrative if execution remains strong. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Other commentary remained cautious, with UBS keeping a neutral rating and some analysts cutting fair value estimates amid questions about AI monetization, unit economics, and growth reacceleration. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: A comparison piece against Oracle underscored that Salesforce’s recent earnings and outlook have not been viewed as strongly as some peers, reinforcing investor concern about near-term performance versus other software names. Article Title

Salesforce Stock Down 2.2%

Salesforce stock opened at $151.67 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $124.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.55, a PEG ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $149.80 and a fifty-two week high of $276.80. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $177.91 and a 200-day simple moving average of $204.72. 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 quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.58 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. 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 expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its board has authorized a share repurchase 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 repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be given a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on CRM. DA Davidson lowered their price target on Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Mizuho cut their price objective on Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price target on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. UBS Group reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $257.61.

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.