Asset Management One Co. Ltd. Purchases 25,059 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Asset Management One increased its stake in Salesforce by 4.7% in Q4, acquiring 25,059 shares to hold 555,686 shares valued at about $147.9 million; institutional investors now own roughly 80.43% of the stock.
• Salesforce beat quarterly expectations with $3.81 EPS (vs. $3.05 est.) and $11.2 billion in revenue (+12.1% YoY) and set FY2027 guidance of roughly 13.11–13.19 EPS.
• The Board authorized a $25 billion share buyback (up to ~14.1% of outstanding shares) and raised the quarterly dividend to $0.44, while company directors recently purchased ~2,570 shares each.

Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 4.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 555,686 shares of the CRM provider's stock after acquiring an additional 25,059 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. owned 0.06% of Salesforce worth $147,932,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. HCR Wealth Advisors increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 33.8% in the fourth quarter. HCR Wealth Advisors now owns 2,068 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $548,000 after purchasing an additional 522 shares in the last quarter. Oak Harvest Investment Services increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 23.8% in the fourth quarter. Oak Harvest Investment Services now owns 20,586 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $5,453,000 after purchasing an additional 3,959 shares in the last quarter. Werba Rubin Papier Wealth Management increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. Werba Rubin Papier Wealth Management now owns 5,108 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $1,353,000 after purchasing an additional 307 shares in the last quarter. Asset Dedication LLC increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 7.6% in the fourth quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 5,926 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $1,570,000 after purchasing an additional 421 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Zullo Investment Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 2.7% in the fourth quarter. Zullo Investment Group Inc. now owns 2,954 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $783,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: BTIG reaffirmed a "buy" on CRM and set a $255 price target (≈40% upside vs. current levels), giving institutional backing that can support further upside. BTIG Reaffirms Buy on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce launched Headless 360, positioning its full platform as infrastructure for AI agents — a strategic move that could broaden addressable market and accelerate enterprise AI spending across the Salesforce stack. Salesforce launches Headless 360
• Positive Sentiment: Customer wins/expansions show traction for Agentforce 360 — travel platform Engine expanded use of AI agents and Slack, automating ~50% of chat cases, cutting handle time ~15% and improving satisfaction, which supports revenue upsell potential for contact-center automation. Engine expands Agentforce 360
• Positive Sentiment: Data 360 adoption shows strong momentum (reported ~200% ARR growth), highlighting a potential new growth driver for larger enterprise contracts and higher‑value deals. CRM's Data 360 Momentum Builds
• Neutral Sentiment: Software-sector momentum helped lift CRM amid a broad bounce in the IGV ETF; sector flows can amplify CRM moves but are not company‑specific fundamentals. Software Stocks Finish Week Hot
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst and media bullishness (e.g., opinion pieces expressing strong conviction) supports sentiment but is not new fundamental data; it can sustain momentum if paired with continued execution. Why I Have Strong Conviction In This Stock
• Negative Sentiment: A recent CMSWire review of Agentforce highlights strengths but also gaps versus rivals (implementation complexity and feature gaps in some areas), a reminder that competitive execution and product parity risk could temper adoption speed. Salesforce Agentforce Contact Center Review

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Salesforce news, Director David Blair Kirk bought 2,570 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $194.62 per share, for a total transaction of $500,173.40. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Laura Alber bought 2,571 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the transaction, the director owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. This represents a 36.94% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on CRM. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on shares of Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 23rd. Mizuho lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Truist Financial set a $280.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $215.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. Finally, BTIG Research reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $279.18.

Salesforce Stock Up 0.5%

Shares of CRM opened at $182.13 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $163.52 and a 52 week high of $296.05. The firm has a market cap of $168.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.32, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 1.29. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $187.87 and its 200 day simple moving average is $224.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. The business had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.78 EPS. Salesforce's quarterly revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often an indication that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This is a boost from Salesforce's previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.54%.

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.

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