Salesforce Inc. $CRM Stake Lessened by Fifth Third Bancorp

Fifth Third Bancorp trimmed its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 8.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 275,819 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 26,062 shares during the period. Fifth Third Bancorp’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $63,320,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of CRM. Latitude Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Salesforce in the third quarter valued at $25,000. ABS Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $610,974,000. ABS Direct Equity Fund LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $25,000. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $26,000. Finally, Persistent Asset Partners Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $27,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other Salesforce news, Director Craig Conway sold 4,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.61, for a total value of $1,172,745.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 5,437 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,416,936.57. This trade represents a 45.29% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 4,176 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, September 18th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $239.33 per share, with a total value of $999,442.08. Following the acquisition, the director directly owned 18,748 shares in the company, valued at $4,486,958.84. This trade represents a 28.66% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Corporate insiders own 3.50% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on CRM shares. Citigroup reissued a “market outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, October 20th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Salesforce from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 17th. Guggenheim lifted their price target on Salesforce from $270.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 17th. Monness Crespi & Hardt boosted their price objective on Salesforce from $222.00 to $266.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-two have given a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $278.98.

Salesforce Stock Down 0.3%

CRM opened at $217.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $236.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $198.42. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $146.32 and a 12 month high of $269.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82, a P/E/G ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.24.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, August 26th. The CRM provider reported $5.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.27 by $2.63. The firm had revenue of $11.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.33 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 24.90% and a net margin of 21.99%. Salesforce’s revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.91 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 16.670-16.710 EPS and its Q3 2027 guidance at 3.420-3.440 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 12.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 17th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 17th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 16.04%.

Salesforce Profile

Salesforce, Inc. is a cloud-based software company best known for customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Its platform helps businesses manage sales, customer service, marketing, commerce and customer data, and includes products such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud and Agentforce. The company also offers Slack for workplace collaboration, Tableau for data analytics and visualization, and MuleSoft for connecting applications and data. Salesforce’s products are used by organizations across a range of industries and are available to customers around the world.