Wedge Capital Management L L P NC Takes Position in Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX)

Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new stake in shares of Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm acquired 83,771 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $2,372,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its stake in shares of Open Text by 1.1% in the third quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 5,642,455 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $187,952,000 after acquiring an additional 63,620 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in Open Text by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,068,116 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $135,399,000 after purchasing an additional 46,223 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its stake in Open Text by 6.9% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,954,755 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $88,754,000 after purchasing an additional 191,271 shares in the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. raised its holdings in Open Text by 2.0% in the second quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 2,932,456 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $88,091,000 after buying an additional 58,561 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Value Partners Investments Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Open Text by 2.2% in the third quarter. Value Partners Investments Inc. now owns 2,342,166 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $77,947,000 after buying an additional 50,348 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on OTEX shares. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Open Text in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price objective for the company. StockNews.com raised Open Text from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Sunday. Scotiabank reduced their price objective on Open Text from $40.00 to $35.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 1st. Royal Bank of Canada cut shares of Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $45.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, TD Securities dropped their price target on shares of Open Text from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, December 30th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.27.

Open Text Price Performance

Shares of Open Text stock opened at $27.78 on Monday. Open Text Co. has a one year low of $26.84 and a one year 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 stock has a market cap of $7.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.06 and a beta of 1.12. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $29.03 and its 200 day moving average is $30.84.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 earnings per share 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.28 billion. Open Text had a net margin of 8.35% and a return on equity of 24.34%. Open Text’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.90 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Open Text Co. will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th were issued a $0.262 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 29th. This is a positive change from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. This represents a $1.05 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.77%. Open Text’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.