Crawford Investment Counsel Inc. Boosts Stake in SAP SE $SAP

Crawford Investment Counsel Inc. grew its stake in shares of SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 366,882 shares of the software maker’s stock after buying an additional 4,016 shares during the period. SAP accounts for 1.5% of Crawford Investment Counsel Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 23rd largest position. Crawford Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in SAP were worth $89,119,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of SAP. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 91.1% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 2,633 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $648,000 after purchasing an additional 1,255 shares in the last quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of SAP during the first quarter worth about $242,000. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 49.0% during the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 16,309 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $4,378,000 after purchasing an additional 5,363 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC acquired a new position in shares of SAP during the first quarter worth about $2,681,000. Finally, Sivia Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of SAP by 2.3% during the second quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,050 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $928,000 after purchasing an additional 69 shares in the last quarter.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on SAP. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of SAP in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Zacks Research cut SAP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. Weiss Ratings cut SAP from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c-)” rating in a research note on Thursday, June 11th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price objective on SAP from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 24th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut SAP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $283.40.

SAP Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE SAP opened at $165.53 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $203.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.37, a PEG ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 1.12. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $173.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $201.26. SAP SE has a 52-week low of $158.58 and a 52-week high of $313.28. The company has a quick ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last posted its earnings results on Friday, February 27th. The software maker reported $1.99 EPS for the quarter. The company had revenue of $11.06 billion during the quarter. SAP had a return on equity of 17.31% and a net margin of 20.08%. On average, analysts anticipate that SAP SE will post 8.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced an annual dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 5th were issued a dividend of $2.9291 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 170.0%. This is a boost from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.54. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 5th. SAP’s dividend payout ratio is currently 28.92%.

SAP Company Profile

SAP SE is a global enterprise software company headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. Founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers, the company’s name is an acronym for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing). SAP develops and sells software and services that help organizations manage business processes across finance, human resources, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and customer relationships.

SAP’s product portfolio spans on‑premises and cloud offerings, anchored by its enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions such as SAP S/4HANA and the SAP HANA in‑memory database and platform.