MidFirst Bank Takes $3.71 Million Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

MidFirst Bank purchased a new stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 23,657 shares of the CRM provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,706,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Salesforce in the second quarter valued at approximately $11,396,844,000. J. Stern & Co. LLP grew its stake in Salesforce by 24,056.7% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 47,385,511 shares of the CRM provider’s stock valued at $12,552,896,000 after acquiring an additional 47,189,352 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Salesforce in the fourth quarter worth about $3,182,951,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 130.2% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 12,659,217 shares of the CRM provider’s stock worth $2,363,096,000 after acquiring an additional 7,160,302 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the second quarter worth about $844,928,000. Institutional investors own 80.43% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CRM has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen cut Salesforce from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, August 1st. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Salesforce from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Monness Crespi & Hardt lifted their price target on shares of Salesforce from $200.00 to $222.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. 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, HC Wainwright downgraded shares of Salesforce to a “negative” rating in a research report on Thursday, June 18th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $249.05.

Salesforce Stock Down 2.6%

Shares of Salesforce stock opened at $191.20 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $156.59 billion, a PE ratio of 22.13, a P/E/G ratio of 1.06 and a beta of 1.16. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $171.58 and its 200 day simple moving average is $181.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. Salesforce Inc. has a 52-week low of $146.32 and a 52-week high of $269.11.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) last issued its quarterly 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. 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 analysts’ expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.58 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. 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, analysts predict that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 11th were paid a $0.44 dividend. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce’s payout ratio is presently 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.