Andrew Macken of Montaka Global Investments presented his investment thesis on Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) at Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2026.
Thesis summary:
Salesforce is the leader in cloud-based CRM software, 4-5x larger than the number-two player, housing the data, metadata, and workflows of more than 150,000 corporate customers. It owns Slack and embeds agentic AI under its Agentforce brand. Andrew argues the market has misread the company amid the “SaaSpocalypse” narrative: that agentic AI lets software be copied or in-sourced cheaply, killing seat-based SaaS and handing power to foundation model companies. On that fear, CRM shares have halved.
Salesforce wins as a privileged distributor of third-party intelligence, not as a creator of code. Deploying agents safely inside an enterprise is harder than it looks, raising governance, security, and control questions that take years to resolve. Salesforce already holds trusted, secure distribution into those enterprises, through which agentic capabilities flow into existing workflows, now even via “headless” access from outside interfaces. Its hard-to-replicate assets are data (over 250 petabytes of proprietary customer data and metadata), distribution, and scale (over $6 billion in annual R&D).
On tokenomics, agentic use cases are hundreds of times more compute-intensive than chatbots, while supply-constrained US power prices are up >30% since 2020. Customers are scrutinizing token budgets and substituting frontier models with cheaper open-weight alternatives. The AI model layer is substitutable; Salesforce’s distribution, workflows, and data are not.
Field interviews point to ROIs of 5x to 20x from labor substitution, with Agentic Work Units up 111% QoQ and token consumption up more than 150% QoQ. Reported revenue growth has lagged because deployment takes time and early Agentforce discounts, including a US bank with consumption pricing waived until 2027, are only now rolling off. Andrew expects low-growth seat licenses offset by agent-consumption growth and operating leverage on the $15 billion marketing budget, lifting earnings above 20% p.a. with near-zero capital intensity.
At an EV near $160 billion, CRM recently traded at ~4.5x EV to gross profit and ~3x EV to the gross profit of its signed $70 billion backlog, levels implying about 1% perpetual revenue growth or no going concern. Against management’s FY30 guidance of $63+ billion in revenue and estimated EBITA above $20 billion, the shares recently traded below 8x EV/FY30 EBITA. The board has authorized a $50 billion buyback. Andrew expects a re-rating if Salesforce proves to be a key distributor of intelligence.
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Wide-Moat Investing Summit 2026 was held from June 23-26, 2026. The content of this website is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security. The content is distributed for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation to sell or buy any security or other investment, or undertake any investment strategy. There are no warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or results obtained from any information set forth on this website. BeyondProxy’s officers, directors, employees, and/or contributing authors may have positions in and may, from time to time, make purchases or sales of the securities or other investments discussed or evaluated herein.
Slides
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