Short Interest in Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) Rises By 19.9%

Open Text Co. (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,360,000 shares, a growth of 19.9% from the January 31st total of 4,470,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 703,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 7.6 days. Approximately 2.1% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of OTEX. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Open Text in the fourth quarter worth $93,216,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its stake in Open Text by 75.9% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 5,994,675 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $169,555,000 after acquiring an additional 2,586,549 shares in the last quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd increased its holdings in Open Text by 11.8% during the 4th quarter. JARISLOWSKY FRASER Ltd now owns 18,547,256 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $522,879,000 after acquiring an additional 1,957,695 shares during the period. Criteria Caixa S.A.U. purchased a new stake in Open Text in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,890,000. Finally, Brandes Investment Partners LP boosted its holdings in Open Text by 29.2% in the 4th quarter. Brandes Investment Partners LP now owns 4,504,139 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $127,557,000 after purchasing an additional 1,017,065 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 70.37% of the company’s stock.

Open Text Stock Up 2.3 %

Shares of OTEX traded up $0.59 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $26.25. The stock had a trading volume of 738,905 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,063,847. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $28.01 and a 200-day simple moving average of $30.18. Open Text has a 1-year low of $25.07 and a 1-year high of $40.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.66 and a beta of 1.12.

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSE:OTC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 6th. The software maker reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.92 by $0.10. Open Text had a net margin of 12.21% and a return on equity of 23.23%. Sell-side analysts predict that Open Text will post 3.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Open Text Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 7th will be issued a $0.2625 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 7th. This represents a $1.05 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.00%. This is an increase from Open Text’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.26. Open Text’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.68%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

OTEX has been the topic of several analyst reports. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Open Text in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $32.00 price target on the stock. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Open Text from $34.00 to $36.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Open Text from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Open Text from $30.00 to $32.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, TD Securities lowered their target price on Open Text from $38.00 to $35.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Sunday, February 9th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Open Text presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.18.

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.