Yahoo Finance Who Really Owns salesforcecom inc (NYSE:CRM)?
The big shareholder groups in salesforcecom inc (NYSE:CRM) have power over the company. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. We also tend to see lower insider ownership in companies that were previously publicly owned.
salesforce.com is a pretty big company. It has a market capitalization of US$119.81b. Normally institutions would own a significant portion of a company this size. In the chart below below, we can see that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about CRM.
View our latest analysis for salesforce.com
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About salesforce.com?
Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.
salesforce.com already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own 84.7% of the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of salesforce.com, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. We note that hedge funds don’t have a meaningful investment in salesforce.com. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily.
Insider Ownership Of salesforce.com
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
Most consider insider ownership a positive because it can indicate the board is well aligned with other shareholders. However, on some occasions too much power is concentrated within this group.
I can report that insiders do own shares in salesforcecom inc. Insiders own US$5.77b worth of shares (at current prices). I sometimes take an interest in whether they have been buying or selling.
General Public Ownership
With a 10.5% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over CRM. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.
Next Steps:
While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important.
Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow .
If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow of shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
