Whittier Trust Co. Sells 4,433 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Whittier Trust Co. lessened its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 14.8% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 25,480 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 4,433 shares during the quarter. Whittier Trust Co.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $4,715,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd boosted its stake 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 stake in Salesforce by 82.7% in the 4th quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $4,608,000 after acquiring an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake in Salesforce by 8.9% in the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $307,984,000 after acquiring an additional 106,107 shares during the period. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 1st quarter valued at $1,004,000. Finally, Eminence Capital LP boosted its position in Salesforce by 5.6% during the third quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $196,837,000 after purchasing an additional 43,888 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CRM has been the topic of several research analyst reports. B. Riley Financial increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday, June 16th. Northland Securities lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $267.00 to $229.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 10th. Bank of America began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, May 18th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Citigroup upgraded Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock traded up $4.61 on Tuesday, hitting $170.26. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,346,082 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,914,153. 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 stock’s 50 day moving average is $173.23 and its 200-day moving average is $197.31. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $276.80. The company has a market capitalization of $139.45 billion, a PE ratio of 19.67, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18.

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, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $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. Equities research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

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.