State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Has $86.06 Million Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D trimmed its Salesforce stake by 2.9% in Q4 and now holds 324,879 shares valued at $86.06 million.
• Insider buying: Directors Laura Alber and David Blair Kirk each purchased ~2,571 shares at about $194.6 per share, increasing their holdings by 36.94% and 23.11%, respectively.
• Corporate actions and results: Salesforce reported an earnings beat, set FY27 EPS guidance of 13.110–13.190, authorized a $25 billion share repurchase, and raised its quarterly dividend to $0.44.

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D trimmed its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 2.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 324,879 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 9,837 shares during the period. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D's holdings in Salesforce were worth $86,064,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Marquette Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Salesforce in the third quarter worth $26,000. Finally, Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX bought a new stake in Salesforce in the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company's stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction 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 ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $235.00 to $210.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $300.00 to $250.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. BTIG Research reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $255.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Friday, April 17th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on Salesforce from $398.00 to $287.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price target on Salesforce from $260.00 to $200.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. 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 assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $279.18.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $177.39 on Thursday. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $163.52 and a 12 month high of $296.05. The firm has a market cap of $145.14 billion, a PE ratio of 23.22, a P/E/G ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $186.84 and its 200-day simple moving average is $220.75.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $11.20 billion for 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 company's revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior 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 expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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

Salesforce Increases Dividend

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

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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