Asio Capital LLC Has $4.32 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Asio Capital LLC lessened its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 29.3% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 18,244 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 7,561 shares during the period. Asio Capital LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $4,324,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.0% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 88,823,481 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $24,221,275,000 after purchasing an additional 909,853 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Salesforce by 1.6% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 49,260,918 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,452,998,000 after buying an additional 776,300 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Salesforce by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 20,873,900 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $5,669,224,000 after buying an additional 114,504 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $2,826,049,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 6.9% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 9,258,518 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,484,616,000 after acquiring an additional 600,386 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In related news, Director G Mason Morfit acquired 96,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 5th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $260.58 per share, for a total transaction of $25,015,680.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director owned 2,994,509 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $780,309,155.22. This trade represents a 3.31% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Parker Harris sold 134,662 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $234.70, for a total value of $31,605,171.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 139,767 shares in the company, valued at $32,803,314.90. The trade was a 49.07% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 166,284 shares of company stock worth $39,439,229 over the last quarter. 3.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on CRM. Citizens Jmp reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $430.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, December 2nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Salesforce from $340.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $430.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Friday, October 17th. Macquarie boosted their price target on Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $326.68.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM stock opened at $265.29 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $248.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.42, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.25. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $221.96 and a 12 month high of $367.09. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $248.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $251.77.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.86 by $0.39. The company had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.27 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.91% and a return on equity of 14.41%. The company’s revenue was up 9.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.41 EPS. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. Research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 8th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.416 per share. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 18th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 22.16%.

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.