Contour Asset Management LLC Takes Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Contour Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 1,134,417 shares of the CRM provider's stock, valued at approximately $300,518,000. Salesforce accounts for 7.0% of Contour Asset Management LLC's holdings, making the stock its 3rd biggest position. Contour Asset Management LLC owned about 0.12% of Salesforce at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd raised its holdings in Salesforce by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $181,143,000 after buying an additional 24,332 shares during the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% during the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $4,608,000 after buying an additional 7,871 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% during the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $307,984,000 after acquiring an additional 106,107 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 2.4% during the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,328,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $1,025,791,000 after acquiring an additional 101,191 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Eminence Capital LP raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $196,837,000 after acquiring an additional 43,888 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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 a $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, a customer AI agent platform, reinforcing its push into agentic AI and potentially expanding its automation and customer-service capabilities. Salesforce to acquire customer AI agent platform Fin for $3.6B
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive, with reaffirmed Buy ratings and targets well above the current share price, suggesting potential upside if Salesforce’s AI strategy and cash generation continue to improve. Analyst rating updates
• Neutral Sentiment: UBS reiterated a Neutral rating, reflecting a wait-and-see stance as investors assess whether Salesforce can convert its AI investments into faster growth. UBS sticks neutral
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlighting strong cash flow, rising margins, and a large buyback plan support the view that Salesforce still has financial flexibility to reward shareholders while investing in growth. CRM's Record Cash Generation Support Robust Shareholder Returns
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple articles raised concerns that Salesforce’s acquisition-heavy strategy may not be translating into sustained growth reacceleration, with some analysts cutting fair value estimates and questioning AI monetization. Salesforce (CRM) Stock Sees Fair Value Cut As Analysts Question AI Growth Path
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary also pointed to “unit economic” concerns and recent share-price weakness, suggesting investors are worried the market is still paying closer attention to execution risk than to the long-term AI opportunity. Salesforce: Putting The Spotlight On The Unit Economic Concerns

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $154.88 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $126.85 billion, a PE ratio of 17.93, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The stock's 50 day moving average price is $178.54 and its 200-day moving average price is $205.28. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $154.23 and a twelve month high of $276.80.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce'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. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company's board believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce's payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on CRM. Oppenheimer dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered their price objective on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an "underperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Salesforce from a "sell (d+)" rating to a "hold (c-)" rating in a report on Wednesday, June 3rd. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Salesforce from $300.00 to $250.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Mizuho lowered their price target on Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $259.26.

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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