Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Buys Shares of 47,800 Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 47,800 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $8,923,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 270,913 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings 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 raised its position in shares of Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the 4th quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 2,669,891 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake 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 worth $5,751,073,000 after purchasing an additional 791,345 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce Stock Down 1.5%

CRM opened at $150.39 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $146.32 and a twelve month high of $276.80. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $175.95 and a 200-day moving average price of $201.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $123.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.41, a PEG ratio of 0.95 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 18.73% and a return on equity of 18.72%. The firm’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm 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 research analysts forecast that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce announced that its board has approved a stock buyback 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 a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th will be issued a $0.44 dividend. 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 1.2%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have weighed in on CRM. Macquarie Infrastructure reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $190.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. HSBC upped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Scotiabank cut shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Canaccord Genuity Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Finally, Oppenheimer lowered their price objective on Salesforce from $275.00 to $250.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $257.61.

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.