KLCM Advisors Inc. Buys New Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

KLCM Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 8,078 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,508,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 13.7% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $8,582,000 after acquiring an additional 3,102 shares during the period. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 12.6% during the 4th quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $611,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 9.0% in the fourth quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $747,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC grew its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $807,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Finally, United Bank raised its stake in Salesforce by 5.2% in the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,781,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. DA Davidson cut their price target on Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a “neutral” rating on the stock. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, June 12th. Guggenheim upgraded Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Barclays raised shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.5%

CRM traded up $0.84 on Friday, reaching $163.34. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 8,316,028 shares, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $171.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $194.51. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $274.00. 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 company has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company’s revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.58 earnings per share. 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, analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 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 paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

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.