Salesforce Inc. $CRM Stock Position Lessened by Rathbones Group PLC

Rathbones Group PLC reduced its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 67.4% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 196,806 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 406,766 shares during the quarter. Rathbones Group PLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $36,738,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd boosted its position 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 valued at $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares in the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% in the 4th quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares during the last quarter. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,004,000. TAM Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 1st quarter worth approximately $40,945,000. Finally, Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $997,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have issued reports on CRM. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday. BMO Capital Markets cut their price objective on Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. DA Davidson reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $175.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. B. Riley Financial lifted 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. Finally, Citigroup raised Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating, sixteen have given a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $249.51.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.2%

CRM stock opened at $184.34 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The firm has a market capitalization of $150.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.34, a P/E/G ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.18. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $170.34 and its 200-day simple moving average is $184.49.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.58 EPS. The company’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. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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

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.