Fifth Third Bancorp Has $66.86 Million Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Fifth Third Bancorp increased its Salesforce stake by 56.1% in the first quarter, buying 128,713 more shares and bringing its total holdings to 358,201 shares worth about $66.9 million.
• Salesforce reported better-than-expected quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 versus $3.13 expected and revenue of $11.13 billion, up 13.3% year over year.
• The company is returning capital to shareholders through a $25 billion buyback and a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, while analysts currently rate the stock a Moderate Buy with an average target price of $254.42.

Fifth Third Bancorp raised its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 56.1% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 358,201 shares of the CRM provider's stock after acquiring an additional 128,713 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp's holdings in Salesforce were worth $66,865,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Salesforce by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $23,800,353,000 after purchasing an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Salesforce by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after buying an additional 659,573 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its position in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after buying an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 13.3% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $6,019,199,000 after buying an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $5,751,073,000 after buying an additional 791,345 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $163.34 on Monday. 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 Inc. has a twelve month low of $146.32 and a twelve month high of $274.00. The stock has a market cap of $133.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 1.18. The company's fifty day moving average is $171.89 and its 200 day moving average is $194.02.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.58 EPS. 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 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given 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 was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on CRM shares. Wedbush started coverage on Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They issued an "outperform" rating for the company. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock 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 report on Thursday, May 28th. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $225.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $254.42.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

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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