Alps Advisors Inc. Raises Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Alps Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 98.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 21,455 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 10,633 shares during the quarter. Alps Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $5,085,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.0% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 88,823,481 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $24,221,275,000 after purchasing an additional 909,853 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Salesforce by 1.6% in the 2nd 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 during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 0.6% during 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 acquiring an additional 114,504 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter valued at $2,826,049,000. Finally, Amundi increased its stake in shares of Salesforce by 26.2% in the second quarter. Amundi now owns 7,755,317 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,087,545,000 after acquiring an additional 1,612,413 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other Salesforce news, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $238.70, for a total value of $929,259.10. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 7,299 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. This represents a 34.78% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 1,936 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was acquired 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. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on CRM shares. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $375.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Salesforce in a report on Monday, January 12th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $330.00 price objective for the company. Arete Research raised Salesforce to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Bank of America reduced their price target on Salesforce from $325.00 to $305.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 17th. Finally, Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, January 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-nine have given a Buy rating, twelve have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $323.57.

Salesforce Stock Up 1.3%

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $193.89 on Tuesday. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $185.73 and a 52-week high of $331.75. 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 company’s 50-day simple moving average is $242.79 and its 200-day simple moving average is $244.55. The firm has a market cap of $181.67 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 1.27.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) 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. Salesforce had a return on equity of 14.41% and a net margin of 17.91%.The company had revenue of $10.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.27 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.41 EPS. Salesforce’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. Equities analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 18th were given 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 yield of 0.9%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 22.16%.

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.