Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) Cut to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning.

Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on the company. UBS Group started coverage on Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 target price for the company. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on Open Text from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada cut Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $45.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Friday, November 1st. TD Securities reduced their price target on shares of Open Text from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Open Text from $36.00 to $34.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Open Text currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.55.

Open Text Trading Up 0.6 %

NASDAQ OTEX opened at $28.31 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $30.17 and a 200 day simple moving average of $30.97. Open Text has a 12 month low of $27.05 and a 12 month high of $45.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.36 and a beta of 1.11.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.80 by $0.13. Open Text had a net margin of 8.35% and a return on equity of 24.34%. The company had revenue of $1.27 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.28 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.90 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Open Text will post 3.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 29th were issued a dividend of $0.262 per share. This is a boost from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 29th. This represents a $1.05 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.70%. Open Text’s payout ratio is presently 60.69%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Open Text

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Ridgewood Investments LLC bought a new position in Open Text in the 2nd quarter worth about $30,000. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in Open Text by 15.9% during the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 20,298 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $610,000 after acquiring an additional 2,791 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in Open Text by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 1,022,387 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $30,681,000 after acquiring an additional 25,665 shares during the period. Cooke & Bieler LP lifted its stake in Open Text by 18.6% in the 2nd quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 5,536,769 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $166,325,000 after purchasing an additional 867,978 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in Open Text by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,021,893 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $120,390,000 after purchasing an additional 599,790 shares during the period. 70.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Open Text

Open Text Corporation provides information management software and solutions. The company offers content services, which includes content collaboration and intelligent capture to records management, collaboration, e-signatures, and archiving; and operates experience cloud platform that provides customer experience and web content management, digital asset management, customer analytics, AI and insights, e-discovery, digital fax, omnichannel communications, secure messaging, and voice of customer, as well as customer journey, testing, and segmentation.