Encore Global Management LP Buys Shares of 22,500 Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Encore Global Management LP bought a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 22,500 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,525,000. Salesforce accounts for approximately 3.5% of Encore Global Management LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 8th largest holding.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of CRM. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the 4th 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. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Salesforce by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 50,080,230 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,286,909,000 after purchasing an additional 659,573 shares during the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP boosted its position in 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 worth $12,552,896,000 after purchasing an additional 47,189,352 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors boosted its position in Salesforce by 13.3% during the fourth 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 in the last quarter. 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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CRM has been the topic of a number of research reports. HSBC increased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $350.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 29th. Bank of America initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, May 18th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $160.00 target price for the company. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 1st. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein dropped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $194.00 to $173.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have given a Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $249.87.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $209.20 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. Salesforce Inc. has a 1-year low of $146.32 and a 1-year high of $269.11. The business has a 50-day moving average of $174.33 and a 200-day moving average of $181.56. The company has a market capitalization of $171.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.21, a PEG ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last announced 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 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 firm 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. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

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.