Locust Wood Capital Advisers LLC Purchases 94,597 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Locust Wood Capital Advisers LLC grew its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 38.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 338,038 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 94,597 shares during the quarter. Salesforce accounts for about 2.2% of Locust Wood Capital Advisers LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 21st largest position. Locust Wood Capital Advisers LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $89,550,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Rockland Trust Co. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 1,145.6% in the 3rd quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 13,066 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $3,097,000 after acquiring an additional 12,017 shares during the period. Alps Advisors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 98.3% in the 3rd quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 21,455 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $5,085,000 after acquiring an additional 10,633 shares during the period. Midwest Trust Co lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Midwest Trust Co now owns 187,071 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $44,336,000 after acquiring an additional 4,233 shares during the period. Profund Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 7.2% in the 3rd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 40,041 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $9,490,000 after acquiring an additional 2,704 shares during the period. Finally, Krilogy Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $2,944,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a landmark partnership with FIFA for the 2026 World Cup and 2027 Women’s World Cup, which could showcase its AI-driven Agentforce 360 platform to a massive global audience and potentially drive future enterprise demand. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: KeyCorp kept an Overweight rating and a $290 price target on Salesforce, while modeling earnings above consensus for FY2027, signaling continued analyst confidence in the company’s profit growth. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Recent commentary highlights Salesforce’s strong momentum, helped by its AI strategy, Agentforce rollout, recurring revenue base, and expanding free cash flow, which may keep long-term investors interested. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s presentation at the Evercore Global TMT Conference and valuation-focused coverage suggest investors are still reassessing how much of the AI and Agentforce optimism is already priced in. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Bridgewater Associates reportedly sold Salesforce, which can pressure sentiment in the near term, although the article argues that institutional selling may create a better entry point for patient investors. Article Title

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on CRM shares. B. Riley Financial increased their target price on Salesforce from $205.00 to $240.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their target price on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings raised Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Roth Mkm reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $257.97.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber purchased 2,571 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 9,530 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. This trade represents a 36.94% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 2,570 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Company insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce Trading Up 0.1%

CRM stock opened at $185.85 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $181.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $208.71. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $163.52 and a fifty-two week high of $276.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $152.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.51, a P/E/G ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. The business’s revenue 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. Analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board 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.