Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Trims Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 7.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,306,173 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after selling 172,691 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned about 0.28% of Salesforce worth $430,493,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Byrne Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Salesforce by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC now owns 4,331 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,147,000 after buying an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 0.3% during the third quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 14,943 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $3,548,000 after acquiring an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Fulcrum Asset Management LLP increased its position in shares of Salesforce by 1.7% during the third quarter. Fulcrum Asset Management LLP now owns 2,774 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $657,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Pine Haven Investment Counsel Inc raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Pine Haven Investment Counsel Inc now owns 3,152 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $835,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the period. Finally, Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. raised its stake in shares of Salesforce by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Richards Merrill & Peterson Inc. now owns 4,239 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $1,123,000 after acquiring an additional 46 shares during the period. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Salesforce Trading Down 1.7%

CRM opened at $166.60 on Thursday. Salesforce Inc. has a one year low of $146.32 and a one year high of $275.56. The company has a market cap of $136.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.28, a PEG ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $172.63 and its 200-day simple moving average is $195.42.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.05 billion. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.58 EPS. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.1%. Salesforce’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 20.37%.

Salesforce declared that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Monday, March 16th that authorizes the company to repurchase $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the CRM provider to purchase up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Key Headlines Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce said the U.S. Air Force is using its Missionforce National Security platform to manage a $13.5 billion vehicle fleet, a high-profile government contract that highlights demand for its software in mission-critical operations. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Guggenheim upgraded Salesforce to Buy from Neutral and set a $228 price target, arguing the AI bear case looks overdone and suggesting meaningful upside if the market re-rates the shares. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce also announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to accelerate adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its push into AI-led growth and enterprise automation. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: New commentary around Slackbot pulling CRM data, generating charts, and sending DocuSign agreements from chat messages points to deeper product integration across Salesforce’s ecosystem, which could improve stickiness and sales productivity. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Several articles reiterated that Salesforce remains a favored “beaten-down” software name with analyst support and potential upside, but they did not add materially new financial details beyond reinforcing the existing bullish narrative. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the positive news flow, investors are still focused on Salesforce’s heavy AI spending and margin pressure, which has kept the stock near recent lows and capped enthusiasm. Article Title

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently commented on CRM shares. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Canaccord Genuity Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $225.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. BTIG Research reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $255.00 price target on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Guggenheim upgraded shares of Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Raymond James Financial downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have given a Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

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.