Van ECK Associates Corp Increases Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 106,107 shares during the quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $307,984,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in Salesforce by 13.7% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 25,668 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $8,582,000 after purchasing an additional 3,102 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 12.6% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,827 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $611,000 after buying an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 9.0% in the fourth quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,234 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $747,000 after buying an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 3.7% in the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,958 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $807,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the period. Finally, United Bank lifted its stake in Salesforce by 5.2% during the 2nd quarter. United Bank now owns 10,198 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,781,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on Salesforce from $340.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $400.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Guggenheim reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Salesforce in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, TD Cowen cut their target price on shares of Salesforce from $325.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, eleven have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $283.14.

Salesforce Stock Performance

Shares of CRM opened at $198.81 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $215.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $236.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.76. The stock has a market capitalization of $183.50 billion, a PE ratio of 25.46, a PEG ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.29. Salesforce Inc. has a 1 year low of $174.57 and a 1 year high of $296.05.

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

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 9th will be given a $0.44 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 9th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.9%. This is a boost from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 21.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Neelie Kroes sold 3,893 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the director directly owned 7,299 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,742,271.30. The trade was a 34.78% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk purchased 1,936 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $258.64 per share, with a total value of $500,727.04. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 10,677 shares in the company, valued at $2,761,499.28. The trade was a 22.15% increase in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this purchase are available in the official SEC disclosure. 3.00% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.