Lafayette Investments Inc. Boosts Stake in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Lafayette Investments Inc. increased its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRMFree Report) by 567.5% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 12,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 10,658 shares during the period. Lafayette Investments Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $2,340,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd increased its holdings in Salesforce by 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $181,143,000 after buying an additional 24,332 shares in the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel boosted 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 acquiring an additional 7,871 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% during 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 acquiring an additional 106,107 shares during the period. Eminence Capital LP increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% in the 3rd quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $196,837,000 after purchasing an additional 43,888 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Secured Retirement Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,004,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have issued reports on CRM. HSBC increased their price target on Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. UBS Group started coverage on Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday. They set an “overweight” rating for the company. KeyCorp dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating 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 assigned a Hold rating and four have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $254.42.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on CRM

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $165.94 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $173.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $197.71. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $276.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $135.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.21, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.18. 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 (NYSE:CRMGet Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The firm had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 earnings per share. The business’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. As a group, analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a $0.44 dividend. 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 dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to buy up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

About Salesforce

(Free Report)

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.

Further Reading

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Institutional Ownership by Quarter for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

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