Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) Stock Rating Lowered by Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada downgraded shares of Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a research report sent to investors on Friday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has $33.00 target price on the software maker’s stock, down from their previous target price of $45.00.

Several other equities analysts have also commented on OTEX. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on Open Text from $38.00 to $33.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. National Bank Financial cut shares of Open Text from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on shares of Open Text from $42.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. CIBC decreased their price objective on Open Text from $36.00 to $33.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on Open Text from $38.00 to $36.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, August 5th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.90.

Open Text Stock Down 3.4 %

Shares of OTEX traded down $1.02 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $28.98. 1,397,525 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 635,531. Open Text has a 52 week low of $27.50 and a 52 week high of $45.47. The company has a current ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $32.73 and a 200 day simple moving average of $31.58. The company has a market cap of $7.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.95 and a beta of 1.12.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The software maker reported $0.98 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.93 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.41 billion. Open Text had a net margin of 8.06% and a return on equity of 25.00%. Open Text’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.79 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Open Text will post 3.23 EPS for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 20th. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.262 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 29th. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.62%. This is a positive change from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. Open Text’s payout ratio is presently 61.40%.

Institutional Trading of Open Text

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in OTEX. Brandes Investment Partners LP boosted its holdings in Open Text by 236.8% in the second quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 1,834,835 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $55,059,000 after acquiring an additional 1,290,011 shares in the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in shares of Open Text by 25.1% during the second quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 5,578,835 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $167,277,000 after purchasing an additional 1,118,479 shares in the last quarter. Cooke & Bieler LP raised its position 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 buying an additional 867,978 shares during the last quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd boosted its holdings in Open Text by 5.1% in the second quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd now owns 15,702,510 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $471,415,000 after purchasing an additional 767,822 shares during the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI grew its holdings in shares of 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 worth $120,390,000 after acquiring 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.