Engineers Gate Manager LP Acquires 95,443 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Engineers Gate Manager LP increased its Salesforce stake by 772.7% in the fourth quarter, buying 95,443 additional shares and bringing its total holding to 107,795 shares worth about $28.6 million.
• Institutional ownership remains heavy, with several other hedge funds adding to positions and 80.43% of Salesforce shares now held by institutions.
• Analysts remain mixed: Salesforce has a Moderate Buy consensus with an average target of $259.26, but some firms recently cut ratings or price targets amid concerns about AI monetization and growth execution.

Engineers Gate Manager LP boosted its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 772.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 107,795 shares of the CRM provider's stock after purchasing an additional 95,443 shares during the quarter. Engineers Gate Manager LP's holdings in Salesforce were worth $28,556,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. First Manhattan CO. LLC. boosted its stake in Salesforce by 19.6% in the 4th quarter. First Manhattan CO. LLC. now owns 2,667,418 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $707,670,000 after purchasing an additional 437,277 shares during the period. Cinctive Capital Management LP bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $5,647,000. Claro Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Salesforce by 4.7% in the 4th quarter. Claro Advisors Inc. now owns 2,862 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $758,000 after purchasing an additional 129 shares during the period. Concentric Capital Strategies LP bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $11,497,000. Finally, Contour Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $300,518,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on CRM. Piper Sandler downgraded Salesforce from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered their target price on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an "underperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $225.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Northland Securities lowered their target price on Salesforce from $267.00 to $229.00 and set a "market perform" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 10th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $259.26.

Salesforce News Roundup

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 Stock Down 4.2%

Shares of CRM opened at $154.88 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $126.85 billion, a PE ratio of 17.93, a P/E/G ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16. The business has a fifty day moving average of $178.54 and a 200 day moving average of $205.28. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $154.23 and a 52-week high of $276.80. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce's revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $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. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.37%.

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

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.

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CRM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report).

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.