Franklin Resources Inc. Acquires 34,135 Shares of Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX)

Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX - Free Report) TSE: OTC by 19.9% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 205,891 shares of the software maker's stock after purchasing an additional 34,135 shares during the quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. owned about 0.08% of Open Text worth $7,086,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Ridgewood Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Open Text in the second quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in shares of Open Text by 435.7% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 975 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 793 shares during the last quarter. Kimelman & Baird LLC bought a new position in shares of Open Text during the second quarter valued at about $36,000. Cromwell Holdings LLC boosted its stake in shares of Open Text by 29.6% in the 3rd quarter. Cromwell Holdings LLC now owns 1,663 shares of the software maker's stock worth $55,000 after buying an additional 380 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Essex LLC bought a new position in shares of Open Text in the third quarter valued at approximately $210,000. 70.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Open Text Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of Open Text stock traded up $0.33 during trading on Monday, reaching $27.93. The company's stock had a trading volume of 414,451 shares, compared to its average volume of 651,263. The company has a market cap of $7.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.14 and a beta of 1.11. The firm's 50-day moving average is $30.63 and its two-hundred day moving average is $31.01. Open Text Co. has a 52-week low of $27.05 and a 52-week high of $45.47. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX - Get Free Report) TSE: OTC last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The software maker reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.80 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $1.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.28 billion. Open Text had a return on equity of 24.34% and a net margin of 8.35%. The company's revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.90 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Open Text Co. will post 3.37 earnings per share for the current year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 29th were paid a dividend of $0.262 per share. This represents a $1.05 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.75%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 29th. This is a positive change from Open Text's previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. Open Text's dividend payout ratio is 60.69%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on Open Text from $33.00 to $32.00 and set a "market perform" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Barclays reduced their price objective on Open Text from $36.00 to $34.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 1st. TD Securities lowered their target price on Open Text from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup lowered their price objective on Open Text from $34.00 to $33.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Open Text from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $35.55.

Open Text Profile

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.