EP Wealth Advisors LLC Makes New $20.93 Million Investment in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

EP Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund acquired 133,602 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $20,930,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted 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 purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in Salesforce by 130.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in Salesforce in the second quarter worth $844,928,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Salesforce News

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Favorable earnings setup: Oppenheimer and other analysts see potential upside from Salesforce’s upcoming results, while market expectations point to a possible post-earnings move toward the stock’s highest level since January. Salesforce Faces Favorable Second-Quarter Setup With Upside Potential How Much Salesforce Stock Is Expected to Move After Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst support: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $228 price target, while Cantor Fitzgerald maintained an Overweight rating and set a $250 target. The calls reflect confidence that Salesforce can capture demand for next-generation AI-powered, “agentic” enterprise workflows. Cantor Fitzgerald Salesforce Analyst Comment
• Positive Sentiment: Growth and capital returns: Zacks characterizes Salesforce as a strong growth stock, while a report highlights a record $27 billion quarterly share repurchase program. Buybacks could support earnings per share and signal that management views the shares as undervalued. Why Salesforce Is a Strong Growth Stock Salesforce Record Stock Buybacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Results are the next catalyst: Analysts are focused on revenue, EPS, and operating metrics for the quarter ended July 2026. Salesforce previously reported $11.13 billion of quarterly revenue, up 13.3% year over year, and EPS of $3.88, above consensus. Salesforce Q2 Earnings Estimates
• Neutral Sentiment: AI platform positioning: Coverage comparing Salesforce with ServiceNow suggests investors are rotating toward enterprise application software as AI investment broadens beyond hardware. Salesforce’s Headless 360 strategy and the Agiloft integration on AgentExchange offer additional evidence of ecosystem expansion. Salesforce Versus ServiceNow
• Negative Sentiment: Risks remain: The buybacks were funded partly with $25 billion of new debt, increasing leverage and interest obligations. Separate commentary questions whether Salesforce could become a value trap if growth slows or AI monetization disappoints. Salesforce Value Trap Analysis

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the subject of several recent research reports. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Wolfe Research downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “outperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Salesforce from $187.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. Finally, Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have issued a Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $249.87.

Salesforce Trading Up 1.8%

Salesforce stock opened at $209.20 on Friday. 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 business’s fifty day simple moving average is $174.33 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $181.56. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11. The company has a market capitalization of $171.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.21, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly 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 firm had revenue of $11.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company’s revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $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. As a group, equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 20.37%.

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.