55,576 Shares in Salesforce Inc. $CRM Acquired by UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp

UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp acquired a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 55,576 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,707,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its position in shares of 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 during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in Salesforce by 130.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after buying an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at about $844,928,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have commented on CRM shares. Barclays raised Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. Susquehanna started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. Erste Group Bank upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $325.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have assigned a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $249.05.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $191.20 on Tuesday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $171.58 and its 200-day moving average price is $181.69. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11. The firm has a market capitalization of $156.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.13, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

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, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.58 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. 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 forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were 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 was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 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.