Spark Investment Management LLC Lowers Stock Position in Open Text Corporation $OTEX

Spark Investment Management LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) by 42.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 35,000 shares of the software maker’s stock after selling 26,000 shares during the period. Open Text makes up about 1.5% of Spark Investment Management LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 19th biggest position. Spark Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Open Text were worth $774,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Royal Bank of Canada boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 10.9% during the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 9,843,494 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $218,920,000 after acquiring an additional 965,385 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its stake in Open Text by 99.1% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,349,545 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $30,014,000 after purchasing an additional 671,572 shares during the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP lifted its holdings in Open Text by 109.8% in the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 109,717 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $2,440,000 after purchasing an additional 57,432 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 47.3% during the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 255,601 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,684,000 after purchasing an additional 82,049 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brandes Investment Partners LP grew its holdings in shares of Open Text by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 9,106,157 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $296,679,000 after buying an additional 106,766 shares in the last quarter. 70.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Open Text Stock Down 2.5%

Shares of OTEX stock traded down $0.59 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $23.36. The company had a trading volume of 1,327,838 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,086,896. The company has a market capitalization of $5.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.05 and a beta of 1.02. Open Text Corporation has a twelve month low of $19.77 and a twelve month high of $39.90. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $23.99 and its 200 day simple moving average is $23.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 0.81 and a current ratio of 0.81.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The software maker reported $1.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.02 by $0.21. The firm had revenue of $1.33 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.29 billion. Open Text had a net margin of 12.26% and a return on equity of 25.76%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.97 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Open Text Corporation will post 3.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 18th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 4th will be paid a dividend of $0.28 per share. This is a boost from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 4th. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.8%. Open Text’s payout ratio is 43.41%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. Zacks Research lowered Open Text from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Friday, August 21st. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Open Text in a report on Wednesday, June 24th. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Open Text from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Scotia cut their target price on Open Text from $40.00 to $33.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, National Bank Financial dropped their price target on Open Text from $45.00 to $33.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $32.46.

Open Text Company Profile

Open Text Corporation is a Canadian enterprise information management (EIM) software company that develops solutions for organizations seeking to manage, protect and extract insight from their unstructured and structured data. The company’s platform encompasses document management, records management, digital asset management and archiving, enabling companies to govern information across its lifecycle.

Open Text’s product suite includes content services, business process management, customer experience management, analytics and security products.