Independent Franchise Partners LLP Makes New $142.52 Million Investment in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Independent Franchise Partners LLP acquired a new position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 537,999 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $142,521,000. Salesforce comprises about 0.9% of Independent Franchise Partners LLP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 22nd largest position. Independent Franchise Partners LLP owned about 0.06% of Salesforce as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% during the 4th 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 period. 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 valued at $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake 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 purchasing an additional 106,107 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,328,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,025,791,000 after purchasing an additional 101,191 shares during the period. Finally, Eminence Capital LP raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% during 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 during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently issued reports on CRM shares. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $225.00 to $215.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Barclays decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $252.00 to $236.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $259.26.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, a customer AI agent platform, reinforcing its push into agentic AI and potentially expanding its automation and customer-service capabilities. Salesforce to acquire customer AI agent platform Fin for $3.6B
• Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain constructive, with reaffirmed Buy ratings and targets well above the current share price, suggesting potential upside if Salesforce’s AI strategy and cash generation continue to improve. Analyst rating updates
• Neutral Sentiment: UBS reiterated a Neutral rating, reflecting a wait-and-see stance as investors assess whether Salesforce can convert its AI investments into faster growth. UBS sticks neutral
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlighting strong cash flow, rising margins, and a large buyback plan support the view that Salesforce still has financial flexibility to reward shareholders while investing in growth. CRM’s Record Cash Generation Support Robust Shareholder Returns
• Negative Sentiment: Multiple articles raised concerns that Salesforce’s acquisition-heavy strategy may not be translating into sustained growth reacceleration, with some analysts cutting fair value estimates and questioning AI monetization. Salesforce (CRM) Stock Sees Fair Value Cut As Analysts Question AI Growth Path
• Negative Sentiment: Commentary also pointed to “unit economic” concerns and recent share-price weakness, suggesting investors are worried the market is still paying closer attention to execution risk than to the long-term AI opportunity. Salesforce: Putting The Spotlight On The Unit Economic Concerns

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $154.88 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $178.54 and a 200-day moving average price of $205.28. Salesforce Inc. has a 12-month low of $154.23 and a 12-month high of $276.80. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The stock has a market capitalization of $126.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.93, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The company had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.Salesforce’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase 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 shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

About Salesforce

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.