Pallas Capital Advisors LLC Purchases New Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Pallas Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 47,547 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $7,449,000.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. 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 acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its position in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,363,096,000 after purchasing an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter worth $844,928,000. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter worth $630,395,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $191.20 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $156.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $269.11. The company’s 50-day moving average is $171.58 and its 200 day moving average is $181.69.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. The firm’s quarterly 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. Sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 20.37%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CRM has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley reissued an “equal weight” rating and set a $185.00 price objective (down from $287.00) on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. Bank of America initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Monday, May 18th. They issued an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 price target for the company. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, August 13th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $250.00 price objective on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have issued a Buy rating, seventeen have given a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Company 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.