BTC Capital Management Inc. Grows Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

BTC Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 91.1% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 7,270 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,466 shares during the quarter. BTC Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $1,357,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in CRM. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC purchased a new position in Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $27,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on CRM. Truist Financial set a $280.00 price target on Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Citigroup reiterated a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings lowered Salesforce from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 17th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Salesforce from $300.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $257.61.

Salesforce Trading Down 1.5%

Shares of CRM opened at $150.39 on Friday. 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 Inc. has a 1-year low of $146.32 and a 1-year high of $276.80. The stock has a market cap of $123.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.95 and a beta of 1.16. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $175.95 and a 200-day simple moving average of $201.50.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior 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 analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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