UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp Raises Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp grew its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 29.0% in the first quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 58,676 shares of the CRM provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 13,200 shares during the quarter. UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp’s holdings in Salesforce were worth $10,953,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Commonwealth Retirement Investments LLC bought a new stake in Salesforce during the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Key Capital Management INC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Gilpin Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Finally, Legacy Bridge LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $27,000. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Salesforce Price Performance

Shares of CRM stock traded up $0.84 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $163.34. The company had a trading volume of 8,316,028 shares, compared to its average volume of 15,336,670. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $274.00. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $171.89 and its 200-day moving average price is $194.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The company has a market capitalization of $133.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.18.

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

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

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were issued a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is 20.37%.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Salesforce announced a $1 billion investment in Switzerland over five years to expand adoption of agentic AI, reinforcing its commitment to AI-led growth and potentially strengthening its international enterprise relationships.
• Positive Sentiment: A bullish deep-dive argued Salesforce is trading at a depressed valuation, with strong free-cash-flow generation and a large debt-funded buyback that reduced share count by more than 10%, signaling management confidence in the business.
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce also unveiled MCP-powered capabilities for Slackbot, which could improve product usefulness and customer engagement, but the market may need proof that these features translate into faster growth.
• Neutral Sentiment: Triveni Power Transmission’s partnership with Salesforce for customer engagement in manufacturing adds another example of industry adoption, though the near-term financial impact appears limited.
• Negative Sentiment: KeyBanc’s downgrade and slightly lower earnings forecast added to investor skepticism that Agentforce will become a major growth catalyst soon.
• Negative Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted that CRM has been a weak performer over the past year, and the recent pullback suggests investors remain cautious despite its lower valuation.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Tuesday, June 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Salesforce in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. Phillip Securities downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $253.00 to $166.00 in a research report on Monday, June 29th. Daiwa Securities Group lowered their target price on shares of Salesforce from $295.00 to $280.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Guggenheim upgraded Salesforce from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $228.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-seven have assigned a Buy rating, fourteen have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $254.42.

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.