CX Institutional Has $12.30 Million Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• CX Institutional increased its stake in Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) by 7.5% in Q4, owning 46,434 shares worth $12.30 million after acquiring an additional 3,248 shares.
• Salesforce's board authorized a $25 billion share buyback (up to ~14.1% of shares) and raised the quarterly dividend to $0.44, underscoring a renewed focus on shareholder returns.
• Insiders signaled confidence as directors David Blair Kirk and Laura Alber each bought roughly 2,570 shares at about $194.60, materially increasing their individual holdings.

CX Institutional raised its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 7.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 46,434 shares of the CRM provider's stock after acquiring an additional 3,248 shares during the period. CX Institutional's holdings in Salesforce were worth $12,301,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $23,800,353,000 after buying an additional 270,913 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 49,420,657 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $11,732,966,000 after buying an additional 159,739 shares during the period. Capital International Investors boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 9.4% during the third quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 20,051,119 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $4,753,519,000 after buying an additional 1,729,440 shares during the period. Capital World Investors boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 159.0% during the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,325,206 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $4,106,255,000 after buying an additional 10,636,161 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 11.8% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 7,155,512 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $1,695,856,000 after buying an additional 754,116 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the 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 purchase, the director directly owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. The trade was a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were bought at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the purchase, the director owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. This trade represents a 36.94% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. 3.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Trending Headlines about Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Launched Agentforce Operations to fix agent workflow failures — Salesforce unveiled Agentforce Operations to orchestrate and harden the workflows that break enterprise AI agents, addressing a core scalability and reliability issue for customers. This product move directly targets enterprise demand for reliable AI automation and can improve retention and upsell. Salesforce launches Agentforce Operations to fix the workflows breaking enterprise AI
• Positive Sentiment: Big AI hiring push and deeper ecosystem bets — Salesforce announced a program to recruit 1,000 new graduates into AI roles and is expanding partner bets (notably a deeper Google Cloud tie-up and an early Anthropic investment). Those moves bolster execution capacity and give Salesforce access to third‑party models/compute, supporting its positioning as an AI-first workflow platform. Salesforce Restructures As AI Hiring Drive And Partnerships Test Valuation
• Positive Sentiment: Crowdsourcing AI roadmap with customers — Salesforce is inviting customers into its AI roadmap process, which can accelerate product-market fit, shorten feedback loops, and lower execution risk for new AI features. That helps protect long‑term revenue trajectories as the company embeds AI into core CRM workflows. Salesforce is crowdsourcing its AI roadmap — with customers
• Positive Sentiment: AI being embedded across CRM workflows (industry validation) — Coverage noting Salesforce and Microsoft pushing AI deeper into CRM workflows signals broad market adoption and competitive validation of Salesforce’s strategy. That supports recurring revenue growth if customers adopt agentized workflows at scale. Salesforce and Microsoft push AI deeper into CRM workflows
• Neutral Sentiment: Wall‑street/sector context — Morgan Stanley remains bullish on select SaaS names amid the broader software pullback; this helps sector sentiment but is not an immediate company‑specific catalyst. Why is Morgan Stanley bullish on 2 SaaS stocks everyone sold?
• Neutral Sentiment: Antitrust/legal action around Slack vs Microsoft — Salesforce’s Slack unit has sued Microsoft in London alleging anticompetitive behavior; legal outcomes are uncertain and timing is long‑dated, so immediate revenue impact is unclear. Salesforce (CRM) Stock In Focus After Slack Targets Microsoft In Court
• Negative Sentiment: Organizational restructuring and workforce reductions — Salesforce is reorganizing with leadership changes and some reductions even as it hires for AI roles; layoffs and exec churn raise short‑term execution and morale risk. Salesforce Restructures As AI Hiring Drive And Partnerships Test Valuation
• Negative Sentiment: Recent short‑term weakness — reporting showed a recent close decline (~‑2.6% in a prior session), highlighting near‑term volatility as investors debate AI execution vs. valuation. Salesforce (CRM) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: Here's Why

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $183.98 on Friday. The business's 50 day moving average is $186.67 and its 200-day moving average is $220.25. Salesforce Inc. has a 1-year low of $163.52 and a 1-year high of $296.05. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The firm has a market cap of $150.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.14.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.78 EPS. The company's 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. Equities research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Salesforce Increases Dividend

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on CRM shares. Wall Street Zen cut Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Saturday, April 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. KeyCorp reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $400.00 to $300.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Barclays reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $265.00 to $252.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $281.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $279.18.

Salesforce Company 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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