Jericho Financial LLP Has $4.28 Million Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Jericho Financial LLP increased its Salesforce stake by 23% in Q1, buying 4,288 more shares and bringing its total holding to 22,943 shares worth about $4.28 million.
• Institutional ownership remains heavy, with hedge funds and other investors holding 80.43% of Salesforce shares. Several firms also recently increased their positions in the stock.
• Salesforce posted strong quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 beating estimates and revenue of $11.13 billion; analysts currently rate the stock Moderate Buy with an average target price of $254.42.

Jericho Financial LLP increased its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 23.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 22,943 shares of the CRM provider's stock after purchasing an additional 4,288 shares during the period. Salesforce makes up approximately 2.7% of Jericho Financial LLP's investment portfolio, making the stock its 20th largest holding. Jericho Financial LLP's holdings in Salesforce were worth $4,283,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd boosted its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $181,143,000 after purchasing an additional 24,332 shares during the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 82.7% during the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% in the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $307,984,000 after buying an additional 106,107 shares during the last quarter. Secured Retirement Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,004,000. Finally, Eminence Capital LP increased its holdings in Salesforce by 5.6% during the third quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $196,837,000 after buying an additional 43,888 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CRM shares. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. HSBC increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Raymond James Financial cut Salesforce from a "strong-buy" rating to a "moderate buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target 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, Sanford C. Bernstein decreased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an "underperform" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-eight have assigned a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $254.42.

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE:CRM opened at $169.41 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $138.75 billion, a PE ratio of 19.61, a P/E/G ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18. Salesforce Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $146.32 and a fifty-two week high of $276.80. 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 company has a 50 day simple moving average of $172.90 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $196.06.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.58 earnings per share. Salesforce's quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.0%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program 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 shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often an indication that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

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.

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.