UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp Boosts Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp boosted its Salesforce stake by 29% in the first quarter, buying 13,200 more shares and ending with 58,676 shares valued at about $10.95 million.
• Salesforce reported better-than-expected quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 versus $3.13 expected and revenue of $11.13 billion, up 13.3% year over year.
• The company has a $25 billion share repurchase program and recently paid a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, while analysts currently hold a consensus rating of Moderate Buy with a $254.42 price target.

UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp increased its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 29.0% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 58,676 shares of the CRM provider's stock after purchasing an additional 13,200 shares during the period. UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp's holdings in Salesforce were worth $10,953,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 89,843,166 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $23,800,353,000 after buying an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $13,286,909,000 after acquiring an additional 659,573 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% during the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its holdings in Salesforce by 13.3% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,721,010 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $6,019,199,000 after acquiring an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Salesforce by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 21,782,556 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $5,751,073,000 after acquiring an additional 791,345 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Headlines 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.

Salesforce Stock Performance

CRM traded up $0.84 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $163.34. 8,316,028 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. The company's fifty day moving average price is $171.89 and its 200-day moving average price is $194.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $274.00.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce's revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. 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, sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

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

Salesforce declared that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company's management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on CRM. BTIG Research reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $255.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an "equal weight" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Wedbush initiated coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. They set an "outperform" rating on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Salesforce from a "buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a "neutral" rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $254.42.

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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