Madison Asset Management LLC Acquires 45,978 Shares of Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Madison Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 98.7% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 92,577 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 45,978 shares during the period. Madison Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $17,281,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $25,000. Key Capital Management INC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Legacy Bridge LLC purchased a new stake in Salesforce in the 4th quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Birchwood Financial Partners Inc. bought a new position in Salesforce in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. 80.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CRM. Wedbush started coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. KeyCorp cut Salesforce from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Raymond James Financial downgraded Salesforce from a “strong-buy” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded Salesforce from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have issued a Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $252.13.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CRM opened at $173.82 on Tuesday. Salesforce Inc. has a 52 week low of $146.32 and a 52 week high of $274.00. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $170.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $190.02. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The firm has a market cap of $142.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.12, a P/E/G ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.18.

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th were given a dividend of $0.44 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. This represents a $1.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.0%. Salesforce’s payout ratio is currently 20.37%.

About Salesforce

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.