Bank of Montreal Can Has $49.90 Million Stock Holdings in SAP SE (NYSE:SAP)

Bank of Montreal Can raised its stake in shares of SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) by 14.8% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 202,689 shares of the software maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 26,118 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can’s holdings in SAP were worth $49,904,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in SAP. Centricity Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in SAP during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA bought a new position in SAP in the fourth quarter worth $27,000. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of SAP by 2,700.0% during the fourth quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 112 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 108 shares during the period. Albion Financial Group UT lifted its holdings in shares of SAP by 122.4% during the fourth quarter. Albion Financial Group UT now owns 129 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 71 shares during the period. Finally, Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich bought a new position in shares of SAP during the fourth quarter valued at $42,000.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on SAP. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $38.00 price target on shares of SAP in a report on Thursday, January 30th. TD Cowen upgraded SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $240.00 to $305.00 in a research report on Friday, January 17th. JMP Securities lifted their price objective on SAP from $300.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 29th. Barclays boosted their target price on SAP from $283.00 to $286.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Finally, Kepler Capital Markets upgraded SAP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to MarketBeat, SAP has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $248.83.

SAP Stock Up 9.5 %

SAP stock opened at $260.11 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $319.55 billion, a PE ratio of 90.63, a PEG ratio of 4.71 and a beta of 1.28. SAP SE has a 1-year low of $175.08 and a 1-year high of $293.70. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $273.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $253.77.

SAP (NYSE:SAP) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 28th. The software maker reported $1.49 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.51 by ($0.02). SAP had a net margin of 9.17% and a return on equity of 12.18%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that SAP SE will post 6.55 EPS for the current year.

SAP Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced an annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 23rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 13th will be issued a dividend of $2.5423 per share. This is a positive change from SAP’s previous annual dividend of $2.39. This represents a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 13th. SAP’s dividend payout ratio is 64.11%.

About SAP

SAP SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides applications, technology, and services worldwide. It offers SAP S/4HANA that provides software capabilities for finance, risk and project management, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and asset management, and research and development; SAP SuccessFactors solutions for human resources, including HR and payroll, talent and employee experience management, and people and workforce analytics; and spend management solutions that covers direct and indirect spend, travel and expense, and external workforce management.