Invesco Ltd. Decreases Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Invesco Ltd. cut its Salesforce stake by 26.8% in the fourth quarter, selling 1.9 million shares and leaving it with about 5.24 million shares valued at roughly $1.39 billion.
• Salesforce reported a strong latest quarter, with EPS of $3.88 beating estimates and revenue of $11.13 billion topping expectations, while revenue grew 13.3% year over year.
• The company also has major capital-return and growth catalysts in place, including a $25 billion share repurchase program, a quarterly dividend, and ongoing analyst optimism tied to its AI and acquisition strategy.

Invesco Ltd. lessened its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 26.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,238,848 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 1,916,664 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. owned about 0.56% of Salesforce worth $1,387,823,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $181,143,000 after acquiring an additional 24,332 shares during the period. SFE Investment Counsel grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% in the fourth quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% in the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $307,984,000 after purchasing an additional 106,107 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Salesforce by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,328,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $1,025,791,000 after purchasing an additional 101,191 shares during the period. Finally, Eminence Capital LP increased its holdings in Salesforce by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $196,837,000 after purchasing an additional 43,888 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $151.67 on Friday. The company's 50-day simple moving average is $177.91 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $204.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $124.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.55, a P/E/G ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.16. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $149.80 and a 52-week high of $276.80.

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, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.58 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue 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, analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.2%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded Salesforce to buy from neutral and set a $200 price target, citing valuation appeal and potential AI-driven upside. Read More
• Positive Sentiment: Truist reiterated confidence in Salesforce after its $3.6 billion Fin acquisition, viewing the deal as another step in expanding its AI automation and customer-agent capabilities. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Multiple articles highlighted Salesforce as a long-term growth stock, with analysts pointing to its AI platform, Agentforce, and ongoing product expansion as reasons for optimism. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest AI and acquisition story continues to attract attention, including coverage of the Fin deal and a new partnership announcement, which could support the long-term growth narrative if execution remains strong. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Other commentary remained cautious, with UBS keeping a neutral rating and some analysts cutting fair value estimates amid questions about AI monetization, unit economics, and growth reacceleration. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: A comparison piece against Oracle underscored that Salesforce’s recent earnings and outlook have not been viewed as strongly as some peers, reinforcing investor concern about near-term performance versus other software names. Article Title

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on the company. BTIG Research reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt raised shares of Salesforce from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a "buy" rating and issued a $225.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Tuesday. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a "buy" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, twelve have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $257.61.

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.

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.