Catalyst Funds Management Pty Ltd Acquires New Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Catalyst Funds Management disclosed a new fourth-quarter stake in Salesforce, buying 4,200 shares valued at about $1.11 million.
• Institutional ownership remains heavy, with hedge funds and other investors holding about 80.43% of Salesforce shares. Several large firms, including Vanguard, State Street, Capital International, Capital World, and Invesco, also added to their positions.
• Salesforce continues to draw mixed market views: analysts broadly remain moderately bullish with a consensus price target of $274.12, but some firms are cautious ahead of earnings amid a challenging enterprise software spending backdrop.

Catalyst Funds Management Pty Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 4,200 shares of the CRM provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,113,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Salesforce by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $23,800,353,000 after acquiring an additional 270,913 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in Salesforce by 0.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 49,420,657 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $11,732,966,000 after acquiring an additional 159,739 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors increased its position in Salesforce by 9.4% during the third quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 20,051,119 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $4,753,519,000 after acquiring an additional 1,729,440 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors increased its position in Salesforce by 159.0% during the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,325,206 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $4,106,255,000 after acquiring an additional 10,636,161 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its position in Salesforce by 11.8% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,155,512 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $1,695,856,000 after acquiring an additional 754,116 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced an expanded collaboration with Cint to deliver next-generation AI-powered support through Slack, reinforcing the company’s push into agentic enterprise workflows and AI-driven automation. Cint and Salesforce to Deliver the Next Generation of AI-Powered Support
• Positive Sentiment: Several analyst- and media-driven pieces highlighted Salesforce as an attractive AI and software value play, with commentary pointing to strong upside potential and expectations that Q1 results may benefit from continued digital transformation and generative AI adoption. Salesforce Likely to Beat Q1 Earnings Estimates: Time to Buy the Stock?
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street price-target articles continue to suggest meaningful upside for CRM, with analysts’ average target implying a large gain from current levels and some firms still keeping bullish ratings. Does Salesforce (CRM) Have the Potential to Rally 53.21% as Wall Street Analysts Expect?
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce granted 64,296 RSUs to 27 employees tied to the Cimulate acquisition; this is routine retention-related equity compensation and is not likely to materially move the stock on its own. Salesforce Grants Equity Awards to Cimulate Under Its Inducement Equity Incentive Plan
• Neutral Sentiment: Investors are also focused on Salesforce’s upcoming earnings release and expected post-earnings volatility, which adds uncertainty but no clear directional catalyst yet. Here's How Much Traders Expect Salesforce Stock Could Move After Earnings
• Negative Sentiment: UBS flagged a mixed enterprise software spending backdrop and said it sees limited signs of near-term acceleration in bookings, which may be weighing on sentiment into earnings. Salesforce faces tough enterprise software backdrop heading into earnings, says UBS
• Negative Sentiment: Bank of America reiterated an Underperform rating with a $160 target, signaling that some analysts remain cautious on the stock despite Salesforce’s strong market position. BofA Maintains Underperform Rating on Salesforce (CRM)

Insider Transactions at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on CRM. Truist Financial set a $280.00 price objective on Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Roth Mkm cut their price target on Salesforce from $395.00 to $325.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Royal Bank Of Canada cut their price target on Salesforce from $290.00 to $210.00 and set a "sector perform" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an "overweight" rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a "buy" rating and set a $281.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $274.12.

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE:CRM opened at $180.32 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $182.26 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $212.98. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $163.52 and a 52-week high of $280.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76. The firm has a market capitalization of $147.54 billion, a PE ratio of 23.09, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.14.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The business's quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.78 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. Analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 9th were paid a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. This is a positive change from Salesforce's previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio is currently 22.54%.

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.

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