UPDATE: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Downgrades TIBCO Software to Neutral, Lowers PT

In a report published Wednesday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded its rating on TIBCO Software

from Buy to Neutral, and lowered its price target from $35.50 to $26.00. BofA Merrill Lynch noted, “We are downgrading TIBX to Neutral from Buy and lowering the PO to $26 from $35.50, after a disappointing pre-announcement of Q4 results that fell short of expectations across various metrics including license, total revenue and EPS. We are surprised by the magnitude of the license miss considering the bullish management commentary on our field trip in late October. The North America sales leadership turnover in late July seems to have taken its toll on the quarter, while the newly appointed leader, Mr. Raj Verma, the former CMO, only recently took the position on Dec 1st. We remain cautious on how and when the new sales leadership in N. America could right the ship, and believe any significant improvement could take a few quarters to materialize. Our new PO is based on PEG of 1.0x preliminary CY13E EPS of $1.32.” TIBCO Software closed on Tuesday at $24.72.