FBR Capital Markets Wednesday raised its price target on Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM), a provider of hosted customer relationship management applications, while keeping its "Market Perform" unchanged. The brokerage, while appreciating the large market opportunity, said the company needs to show better operating leverage given the revenue run-rate, especially its valuation.
Analyst David Hilal noted that the company reported a decent third quarter with better-than-expected revenues and bookings, in line EPS, and lower-than-expected cash flow.
The brokerage raised the fourth-quarter pro forma earnings estimates to $0.25 from $0.24 per share and revenue estimate to $343 million from $335 million. Further, FBR raised its FY11 pro forma earnings estimates to $1.22 from $1.20 and revenue estimate to $1.51 billion from $1.48 billion.
The brokerage raised its price target to $57 from $45, which represents 47x times its FY11 pro forma earnings per share estimates.
CRM closed Tuesday's regular trade on the New York Stock Exchange at $65.61, down $1.24 or 1.85%. In after hours, the stock traded down $3.61 or 5.50%.
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