First Manhattan CO. LLC. Purchases 437,277 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• First Manhattan CO. LLC increased its Salesforce stake by 19.6% in the fourth quarter, buying 437,277 additional shares and bringing its total holding to 2,667,418 shares valued at about $707.7 million.
• Salesforce is seeing continued institutional interest, with several large hedge funds and asset managers adding to positions; overall, 80.43% of the stock is now owned by institutional investors.
• The company is balancing growth and shareholder returns with a $25 billion buyback, a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, and strong recent earnings, though shares remain under pressure amid mixed analyst views on its AI strategy and growth prospects.

First Manhattan CO. LLC. lifted its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 19.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,667,418 shares of the CRM provider's stock after purchasing an additional 437,277 shares during the quarter. Salesforce comprises 1.9% of First Manhattan CO. LLC.'s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest holding. First Manhattan CO. LLC. owned approximately 0.28% of Salesforce worth $707,670,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. 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 valued at $23,800,353,000 after purchasing an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during 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 purchasing an additional 659,573 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during 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 purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its position 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 valued at $6,019,199,000 after purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position 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 valued at $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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 Trading Down 4.2%

Salesforce stock opened at $154.88 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The business's fifty day simple moving average is $178.54 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $205.28. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $154.23 and a 12 month high of $276.80. The company has a market capitalization of $126.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

Salesforce Announces Dividend

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CRM has been the topic of several research reports. Jefferies Financial Group restated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday. KeyCorp dropped their target price on Salesforce from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. TD Cowen reissued a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, June 12th. Oppenheimer dropped their target price on Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $259.26.

Salesforce 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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