Heartland Bank & Trust Co Purchases New Shares in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Heartland Bank & Trust Co purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 5,725 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $897,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $23,800,353,000 after purchasing an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the second quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp raised its position in Salesforce by 1.3% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after buying an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in Salesforce by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $6,019,199,000 after buying an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. HSBC lifted their target price on Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Piper Sandler cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $228.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 13th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $250.00 price objective for the company. Finally, HC Wainwright downgraded shares of Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, eighteen have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.87.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Favorable earnings setup: Oppenheimer and other analysts see potential upside from Salesforce’s upcoming results, while market expectations point to a possible post-earnings move toward the stock’s highest level since January. Salesforce Faces Favorable Second-Quarter Setup With Upside Potential How Much Salesforce Stock Is Expected to Move After Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $228 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating and set a $250 target. The calls reflect confidence that Salesforce can capture demand for next-generation AI-powered, “agentic” enterprise workflows. Cantor Fitzgerald Salesforce Analyst Comment
• Positive Sentiment: Growth and capital returns: Zacks characterizes Salesforce as a strong growth stock, while a report highlights a record $27 billion quarterly share repurchase program. Buybacks could support earnings per share and signal that management views the shares as undervalued. Why Salesforce Is a Strong Growth Stock Salesforce Record Stock Buybacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Results are the next catalyst: Analysts are focused on revenue, EPS, and operating metrics for the quarter ended July 2026. Salesforce previously reported $11.13 billion of quarterly revenue, up 13.3% year over year, and EPS of $3.88, above consensus. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Estimates
• Neutral Sentiment: AI platform positioning: Coverage comparing Salesforce with ServiceNow suggests investors are rotating toward enterprise application software as AI investment broadens beyond hardware. Salesforce’s Headless 360 strategy and the Agiloft integration on AgentExchange offer additional evidence of ecosystem expansion. Salesforce Versus ServiceNow
• Negative Sentiment: Risks remain: The buybacks were funded partly with $25 billion of new debt, increasing leverage and interest obligations. Separate commentary questions whether Salesforce could become a value trap if growth slows or AI monetization disappoints. Salesforce Value Trap Analysis

Salesforce Stock Up 1.8%

NYSE:CRM opened at $209.20 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $146.32 and a 12-month high of $269.11. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $174.33 and its 200-day simple moving average is $181.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $171.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS 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 business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. The firm’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. Equities research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce 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.