Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Given Average Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the twelve analysts that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $35.55.

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Scotiabank cut their target price on shares of Open Text from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. StockNews.com downgraded Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 25th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $45.00 to $33.00 in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup reduced their price objective on Open Text from $34.00 to $33.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on shares of Open Text from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st.

Institutional Trading of Open Text

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Brandes Investment Partners LP lifted its stake in Open Text by 236.8% during the second quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 1,834,835 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $55,059,000 after purchasing an additional 1,290,011 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company raised its holdings in shares of Open Text by 25.1% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 5,578,835 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $167,277,000 after buying an additional 1,118,479 shares in the last quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP lifted its position in shares of Open Text by 18.6% during the 2nd quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP now owns 5,536,769 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $166,325,000 after buying an additional 867,978 shares during the period. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd boosted its stake in Open Text by 5.1% in the 2nd quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd now owns 15,702,510 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $471,415,000 after buying an additional 767,822 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in Open Text by 17.5% in the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,021,893 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $120,390,000 after acquiring an additional 599,790 shares during the period. 70.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Open Text Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ OTEX opened at $28.32 on Wednesday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $29.85 and its 200-day simple moving average is $31.00. Open Text has a 52 week low of $27.05 and a 52 week high of $45.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79. The firm has a market cap of $7.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.37 and a beta of 1.11.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $1.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. Open Text had a net margin of 8.35% and a return on equity of 24.34%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.90 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Open Text will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 29th were paid a $0.262 dividend. 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 dividend yield of 3.70%. Open Text’s dividend payout ratio is currently 60.69%.

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.