Salesforce Inc. $CRM Shares Purchased by Alps Advisors Inc.

Alps Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 98.3% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 21,455 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 10,633 shares during the period. Alps Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $5,085,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Salesforce by 1.0% in 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 increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 49,260,918 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $13,452,998,000 after purchasing an additional 776,300 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised 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 Salesforce in the second quarter valued at about $2,826,049,000. Finally, Amundi boosted its stake in Salesforce by 26.2% during the second quarter. Amundi now owns 7,755,317 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,087,545,000 after buying an additional 1,612,413 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on CRM. Wolfe Research reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, January 12th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $330.00 target price for the company. Arete Research upgraded Salesforce to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. 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 research note on Monday, November 17th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reissued an “underperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have issued a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $323.57.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $193.89 on Tuesday. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $185.73 and a 1 year high of $331.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $181.67 billion, a PE ratio of 25.89, a PEG ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 0.98. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $242.79 and a 200-day simple moving average of $244.55.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th were paid a dividend of $0.416 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 18th. This represents a $1.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 22.16%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Salesforce news, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $258.64 per share, for a total transaction of $500,727.04. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 10,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,761,499.28. This represents a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total value of $929,259.10. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 7,299 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. This represents a 34.78% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 3.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Salesforce

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.