LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. Increases Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. boosted its Salesforce stake by 61.4% in the first quarter, buying 17,373 more shares and ending with 45,645 shares valued at about $8.52 million.
• Salesforce reported better-than-expected quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 versus $3.13 estimated and revenue of $11.13 billion, up 13.3% year over year.
• The company’s board also approved a $25 billion share buyback, while analysts remain mixed overall with a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a $254.42 price target.

LGT Fund Management Co Ltd. increased its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 61.4% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 45,645 shares of the CRM provider's stock after purchasing an additional 17,373 shares during the period. LGT Fund Management Co Ltd.'s holdings in Salesforce were worth $8,521,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM traded up $0.84 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $163.34. 8,316,028 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $146.32 and a 1 year high of $274.00. The company's 50-day moving average is $171.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is $194.51. The company has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.90, a PEG ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.18.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly 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 company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.58 earnings per share. The firm's 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. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 20.37%.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Salesforce from an "outperform" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Roth Capital reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Daiwa Securities Group decreased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Sanford C. Bernstein cut their price objective on Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an "underperform" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Barclays raised Salesforce from an "overweight" rating to an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $254.42.

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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