Horizon Investments LLC Decreases Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Horizon Investments trimmed its stake in Salesforce by 8.7% in Q4, selling 5,404 shares and leaving 56,793 shares valued at about $15.0M, while institutions now own roughly 80.4% of the stock.
• Two directors — Laura Alber and David Blair Kirk — each bought about 2,570 shares at ~ $194.6, increasing their holdings and contributing to insiders owning about 3% of the company.
• Salesforce beat Q results (EPS $3.81 vs. $3.05; revenue $11.20B vs. $11.18B), set FY2027 guidance, and announced a major capital-return program including a $25 billion share repurchase and a raised quarterly dividend to $0.44.

Horizon Investments LLC cut its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 8.7% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 56,793 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 5,404 shares during the period. Horizon Investments LLC's holdings in Salesforce were worth $15,045,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. MN Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $647,000. Danske Bank A S grew its stake in Salesforce by 19.0% during the 4th quarter. Danske Bank A S now owns 999,299 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $264,724,000 after purchasing an additional 159,234 shares in the last quarter. Pegasus Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Salesforce by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Pegasus Asset Management Inc. now owns 17,510 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $4,639,000 after purchasing an additional 499 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in Salesforce by 121.4% during the 4th quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 71,393 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $18,913,000 after purchasing an additional 39,141 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Verity Asset Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth approximately $269,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other Salesforce news, Director Laura Alber bought 2,571 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 9,530 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 2,570 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was bought at an average price of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. 3.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on CRM. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. BTIG Research reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, April 17th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $375.00 to $250.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $197.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Monday, March 2nd. Finally, Truist Financial set a $280.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Salesforce currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $279.18.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $183.98 on Friday. The business's fifty day moving average price is $186.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $220.45. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $163.52 and a 12-month high of $296.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $150.54 billion, a PE ratio of 23.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.78 earnings per share. 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 forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to repurchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company's board believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 9th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.0%. This is a positive change from Salesforce's previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.54%.

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 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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