Jennison Associates LLC Sells 290,640 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Jennison Associates LLC cut its Salesforce stake by 90.8% in Q4, selling 290,640 shares and leaving 29,447 shares valued at about $7.8 million.
• Salesforce beat quarterly estimates (EPS $3.81 vs. $3.05; revenue $11.20B vs. $11.18B), raised its quarterly dividend to $0.44, set FY2027 EPS guidance of 13.11–13.19, and authorized a $25 billion share buyback program.
• Management is accelerating an AI push—launching Agentforce Operations, recruiting 1,000 AI hires and deepening partner ties—while facing short‑term execution risks from restructuring/layoffs and an antitrust dispute involving Slack.

Jennison Associates LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 90.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 29,447 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 290,640 shares during the period. Jennison Associates LLC's holdings in Salesforce were worth $7,801,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Marquette Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 3rd quarter worth about $26,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Finally, Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX acquired a new stake in Salesforce during the 3rd quarter worth about $28,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CRM has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Mizuho decreased their price target on Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their price target on Salesforce from $223.00 to $194.00 and set an "underperform" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. UBS Group decreased their price target on Salesforce from $260.00 to $200.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 17th. KeyCorp decreased their price target on Salesforce from $400.00 to $300.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Wolfe Research restated an "outperform" rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently 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 company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $186.67 and a 200-day moving average of $220.25. The company has a market cap of $150.54 billion, a PE ratio of 23.56, a P/E/G ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 1.14. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $163.52 and a one year high of $296.05.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. The company had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 15.38% and a net margin of 17.96%.The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.78 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. This is an increase from Salesforce's previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.54%.

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

Insider Transactions at Salesforce

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

Key Stories Impacting 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 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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