Great Lakes Advisors LLC Sells 33,981 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Great Lakes Advisors LLC cut its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 82.2% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 7,374 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 33,981 shares during the quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $1,748,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of CRM. Harvey Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 17.7% in the 3rd quarter. Harvey Capital Management Inc. now owns 32,621 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $7,731,000 after acquiring an additional 4,905 shares in the last quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. raised its position in Salesforce by 4.0% in the 2nd quarter. Avantax Advisory Services Inc. now owns 87,331 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $23,814,000 after purchasing an additional 3,387 shares during the last quarter. Grant Private Wealth Management Inc acquired a new position in Salesforce in the third quarter worth $1,458,000. Advyzon Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 57.4% during the second quarter. Advyzon Investment Management LLC now owns 1,884 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $514,000 after purchasing an additional 687 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CX Institutional increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 78.0% in the third quarter. CX Institutional now owns 43,186 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $10,235,000 after buying an additional 18,927 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on CRM. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price objective on Salesforce from $250.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Monday, January 5th. Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. Bank of America dropped their price objective on Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 17th. Finally, TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $324.51.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $212.10 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $208.78 and a twelve month high of $349.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $198.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.32, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a 50 day moving average of $246.78 and a 200-day moving average of $247.45.

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

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 18th were issued a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.16%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Salesforce news, Director G Mason Morfit bought 96,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 5th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $260.58 per share, with a total value 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 ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total transaction of $929,259.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. This represents a 34.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold a total of 138,677 shares of company stock valued at $32,566,029 in the last 90 days. 3.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.