Diamond Hill Capital Management LLC Investment Advisor Makes New Investment in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Diamond Hill Capital Management initiated a Salesforce position of 1.41 million shares valued at approximately $220.3 million, representing 1.8% of its portfolio. Institutional investors collectively own 80.43% of Salesforce.
• Analyst sentiment remains favorable, with a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating and an average price target of $249.05, although Goldman Sachs rated the stock Neutral and some investors cited rising competition from AI-native software.
• Salesforce recently exceeded quarterly earnings expectations, reporting $3.88 in EPS and $11.13 billion in revenue, with revenue up 13.3% year over year. The company also declared a $0.44 quarterly dividend, equal to a 0.9% annualized yield.

Diamond Hill Capital Management LLC Investment Advisor purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 1,405,920 shares of the CRM provider's stock, valued at approximately $220,251,000. Salesforce makes up approximately 1.8% of Diamond Hill Capital Management LLC Investment Advisor's investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position. Diamond Hill Capital Management LLC Investment Advisor owned 0.17% of Salesforce as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. J. Stern & Co. LLP raised its position in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in 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 in the fourth quarter worth approximately $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $2,363,096,000 after acquiring an additional 7,160,302 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter valued at approximately $844,928,000. Finally, Cardano Risk Management B.V. raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 924.7% during the fourth quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 3,883,610 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $1,028,807,000 after purchasing an additional 3,504,605 shares during the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CRM. Roth Capital restated a "buy" rating and issued a $325.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. BTIG Research reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Citizens Jmp reissued a "market outperform" rating and set a $315.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Salesforce in a report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a "neutral" rating for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $249.05.

More Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan resumed coverage with an Overweight rating and a $250 price target, citing potential acceleration in Salesforce’s core business during the second half of the year. The target implies more than 24% upside from recent levels. JPMorgan bullish Salesforce coverage
• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt raised its Salesforce price target to $222 from $200 and maintained a Buy rating. UBS and Wells Fargo also reportedly forecast strong appreciation, reinforcing improving sell-side sentiment. Monness Crespi Salesforce price target
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce’s Agentforce platform is gaining traction, giving the company a way to use its large CRM customer base to compete with Microsoft and Oracle in enterprise “agentic” AI. Salesforce agentic AI analysis
• Positive Sentiment: A Seeking Alpha analysis argues that Salesforce’s $27.1 billion share-repurchase program, equivalent to an estimated 23% net buyback yield, could support earnings-per-share growth. The stock also appears inexpensive at roughly 14 times forward earnings, although buybacks have increased debt. Salesforce buyback analysis
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce has recently posted strong momentum, with reports noting three consecutive weeks of gains and substantial one-month appreciation. That run may be encouraging investors, but it also raises the possibility of profit-taking.
• Negative Sentiment: Parnassus Investments indicated that Salesforce has lost favor as AI opportunities shift toward competing or substitute technologies. Other commentary likewise warns that alternative software and AI-native tools threaten Salesforce’s traditional CRM franchise. Salesforce AI competition concerns

Salesforce Trading Down 0.2%

NYSE:CRM opened at $195.86 on Monday. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $171.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $181.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $160.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce's revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. Salesforce's payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

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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