WestEnd Advisors LLC Has $38.37 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

WestEnd Advisors LLC lessened its stake in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 3.8% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 144,820 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 5,735 shares during the quarter. WestEnd Advisors LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $38,365,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Marquette Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Salesforce

In other news, Director Laura Alber bought 2,571 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $194.58 per share, for a total transaction of $500,265.18. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director David Blair Kirk bought 2,570 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the purchase, the director owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,664,153.18. This represents a 23.11% increase in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this purchase provides additional information. Corporate insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: BTIG reaffirmed a “buy” on CRM and set a $255 price target (≈40% upside vs. current levels), giving institutional backing that can support further upside. BTIG Reaffirms Buy on Salesforce
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce launched Headless 360, positioning its full platform as infrastructure for AI agents — a strategic move that could broaden addressable market and accelerate enterprise AI spending across the Salesforce stack. Salesforce launches Headless 360
• Positive Sentiment: Customer wins/expansions show traction for Agentforce 360 — travel platform Engine expanded use of AI agents and Slack, automating ~50% of chat cases, cutting handle time ~15% and improving satisfaction, which supports revenue upsell potential for contact-center automation. Engine expands Agentforce 360
• Positive Sentiment: Data 360 adoption shows strong momentum (reported ~200% ARR growth), highlighting a potential new growth driver for larger enterprise contracts and higher‑value deals. CRM’s Data 360 Momentum Builds
• Neutral Sentiment: Software-sector momentum helped lift CRM amid a broad bounce in the IGV ETF; sector flows can amplify CRM moves but are not company‑specific fundamentals. Software Stocks Finish Week Hot
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst and media bullishness (e.g., opinion pieces expressing strong conviction) supports sentiment but is not new fundamental data; it can sustain momentum if paired with continued execution. Why I Have Strong Conviction In This Stock
• Negative Sentiment: A recent CMSWire review of Agentforce highlights strengths but also gaps versus rivals (implementation complexity and feature gaps in some areas), a reminder that competitive execution and product parity risk could temper adoption speed. Salesforce Agentforce Contact Center Review

Salesforce Stock Performance

NYSE CRM opened at $182.13 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $163.52 and a 1 year high of $296.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The firm has a market cap of $168.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.32, a PEG ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $187.87 and a 200-day moving average price of $224.04.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The CRM provider reported $3.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.05 by $0.76. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. The firm had revenue of $11.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.18 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.78 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 7.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to buyback $25.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be paid a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 9th. This is a positive change from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.54%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial set a $280.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $250.00 to $215.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Salesforce in a report on Monday, December 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $279.18.

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.