Wedbush maintains Salesforce stock Outperform with $425 target

On Tuesday, Wedbush Securities maintained its Outperform rating on Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) with a price target of $425.00. The endorsement comes as Salesforce announced its plans to acquire Informatica, a data-management software company, in a transaction valued at approximately $8 billion, adjusting for Salesforce’s existing investment in Informatica. According to InvestingPro data, Informatica boasts impressive financial health metrics, including a perfect Piotroski Score of 9 and industry-leading gross profit margins of 80.5%. The company’s current market capitalization stands at $6.8 billion.

Salesforce aims to enhance its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy through this acquisition. The deal will see Informatica’s Class A and B-1 common stock shareholders receive roughly $25 per share. This valuation is based on approximately 5 times FY25 enterprise value to revenue (EV/Revs) and around 21.5 times FY25 forward price to earnings (P/E). The acquisition is anticipated to be finalized in early 2026. Notably, Informatica’s stock has shown strong momentum, with a 17.2% return over the past week, and the company maintains a healthy current ratio of 1.92, indicating strong liquidity.

Salesforce has not engaged in a major acquisition of this scale since its 2021 purchase of Slack for $28 billion. However, Wedbush views the Informatica deal as a strategic and intelligent move for customer acquisition. Informatica boasts a robust customer base, with over 5,000 clients, including about 2,500 cloud subscription annual recurring revenue (ARR) customers and over 80% of the Fortune 100, utilizing its technology for analytics and AI-driven processes. The integration of Informatica is expected to significantly bolster Salesforce’s AI capabilities.

According to the analysis by Wedbush, the acquisition could yield cost synergies ranging from 15% to 20% for Salesforce. Informatica has long been considered a potential target for acquisition, and the move is seen as a strategic enhancement to Salesforce’s use of proprietary data to improve its AI strategy.

In other recent news, Informatica has been at the center of several noteworthy developments. RBC Capital Markets has raised its price target for Informatica to $22, maintaining a Sector Perform rating, amid speculation of a potential acquisition by Salesforce. While neither company has confirmed these talks, RBC’s adjustment reflects Informatica’s perceived value in the tech sector. Informatica has also unveiled a new strategy for AI-driven data management, introducing AI Agent Engineering and CLAIRE Agents, which aim to enhance autonomous data management capabilities. These innovations are part of Informatica’s broader effort to redefine data management and AI orchestration.

Additionally, Informatica has expanded its partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), announcing enhancements to Microsoft Fabric with new data tools. This includes a Data Quality Native Application and Master Data Management Extensions, both designed to streamline data management and integration. Informatica’s collaboration with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has also advanced, with the introduction of AI agent recipes and a new connector for Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse, enhancing its analytics capabilities. These efforts underscore Informatica’s commitment to innovation and strategic partnerships with major tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

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