Baillie Gifford & Co. Sells 42,756 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Baillie Gifford & Co. trimmed its position in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRMFree Report) by 3.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,120,363 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 42,756 shares during the quarter. Baillie Gifford & Co.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $265,526,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter valued at about $2,826,049,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 27,361.5% during the second quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,424,169 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $933,737,000 after purchasing an additional 3,411,700 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Salesforce by 1,729.6% during the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 1,973,141 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $538,020,000 after purchasing an additional 1,865,297 shares in the last quarter. Amundi grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 26.2% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 7,755,317 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $2,087,545,000 after purchasing an additional 1,612,413 shares during the period. Finally, Schroder Investment Management Group raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 45.8% in the 2nd quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 3,931,945 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $1,072,202,000 after buying an additional 1,234,969 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have weighed in on CRM shares. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $340.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Monday, December 29th. DA Davidson upped their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $225.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, December 5th. Finally, Macquarie lifted their target price on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $324.51.

Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on CRM

Salesforce Price Performance

CRM opened at $228.02 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.26. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $247.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $249.01. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $218.96 and a one year high of $367.09.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRMGet Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 3rd. The CRM provider reported $3.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.86 by $0.39. The firm had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.27 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 17.91%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.41 EPS. Salesforce has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.020-3.040 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th were given a $0.416 dividend. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 18th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.16%.

Insider Activity

In other Salesforce news, CEO Marc Benioff sold 122 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.00, for a total transaction of $31,598.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 11,911,571 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,085,096,889. This represents a 0.00% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the sale, the director owned 7,299 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. This represents a 34.78% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 145,427 shares of company stock worth $34,290,361. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

About Salesforce

(Free Report)

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.

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Institutional Ownership by Quarter for Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

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