State of Michigan Retirement System Decreases Stock Holdings in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

by · The Cerbat Gem

State of Michigan Retirement System lowered its position in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM – Free Report) by 3.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 249,243 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 9,300 shares during the period. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $66,027,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Marquette Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 3rd quarter worth about $26,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter worth approximately $27,000. Finally, Texas Capital Bancshares Inc TX acquired a new position in Salesforce in the third quarter valued at approximately $28,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Roth Mkm dropped their price target on shares of Salesforce from $395.00 to $325.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein reduced their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $223.00 to $194.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $375.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 23rd. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $375.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, eleven have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Salesforce presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $279.18.

Read Our Latest Report on Salesforce

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Laura Alber acquired 2,571 shares of Salesforce stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $194.58 per share, with a total value of $500,265.18. Following the purchase, the director directly owned 9,530 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,347.40. The trade was a 36.94% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director David Blair Kirk acquired 2,570 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 18th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $194.62 per share, with a total value of $500,173.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 13,689 shares in the company, valued at $2,664,153.18. This trade represents a 23.11% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders own 3.00% of the company’s stock.

Salesforce News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

Salesforce Stock Up 0.1%

CRM stock opened at $178.31 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $145.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $187.22 and a 200 day moving average price of $221.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. Salesforce Inc. has a 12 month low of $163.52 and a 12 month high of $296.05.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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. The company had revenue of $11.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.18 billion. Salesforce had a net margin of 17.96% and a return on equity of 15.38%. Salesforce’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.78 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 13.110-13.190 EPS and its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.110-3.130 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 9.71 earnings per share for the current year.

Salesforce Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 9th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. This is an increase from Salesforce’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.42. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 9th. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio is 22.54%.

Salesforce declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that permits the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Company Profile

(Free Report)

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.

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