Sage Group plc (LON: SGE) Stock on 2 December 2025: Share Price, £300m Buyback, AI Push and Analyst Forecasts for 2026

This article is for information only and does not constitute investment advice.

Where Sage Group’s share price sits on 2 December 2025

As of the morning of 2 December 2025, shares in Sage Group plc (LON: SGE) are trading around 1,066p on the London Stock Exchange, down about 0.7% on the day and roughly 19% below their level a year ago. ^[1]

Over the last 52 weeks, the stock has traded in a range of about 1,034.5p to 1,349p, putting today’s price close to the lower end of that band. ^[2] At this level, Sage carries a market capitalisation of roughly £10.2 billion. ^[3]

Using the freshly reported FY25 underlying EPS of 43.2p and today’s price, Sage trades on a trailing P/E of just under 25x on an underlying basis, or closer to 28x on statutory EPS of 37.7p. ^[4] That multiple firmly places it in the “quality compounder” bucket rather than the deep‑value bargain bin.

FY25 results: double‑digit growth and rising margins

On 19 November 2025, Sage published audited results for the year ended 30 September 2025, and the numbers were solidly in “grown‑up SaaS” territory rather than legacy on‑prem software. ^[5]

Key FY25 highlights (underlying basis):

Underlying total revenue: up 10% to £2,513m
Annualised recurring revenue (ARR): up 11% to £2,574m
Underlying operating profit: up 17% to £600m
Underlying operating margin: up from 22.4% to 23.9% (+150 bps)
Underlying EBITDA: up 15% to £694m
Underlying basic EPS: up 18% to 43.2p
Underlying cash conversion: a robust 110%

On a statutory basis, revenue grew 8% to £2,513m, operating profit rose 17% to £530m, and statutory EPS increased 18% to 37.7p. ^[6]

Management continues to push Sage’s evolution into a cloud‑first, AI‑enabled platform for small and mid‑sized businesses (SMBs):

Sage Business Cloud revenue increased 13% to £2,083m, driven by
Cloud‑native revenue growth of 23% to £885m. ^[7]
Subscription penetration climbed to 83% of revenue, with subscription revenue up 12% to £2,093m. ^[8]

In his results commentary, CEO Steve Hare highlighted Sage’s AI push, including:

Sage Copilot, an AI assistant now deployed across Sage Intacct, Sage X3, Sage Accounting and Sage 50
A growing set of AI agents embedded in Sage’s platform to automate workflows and surface insights for finance, HR and payroll teams. ^[9]

Acquisitions remain a supporting act in that strategy. In the last year Sage has:

Acquired ForceManager (now Sage Sales Management) to bolster CRM‑style sales productivity
Bought Fyle, an AI‑enabled expense management platform
Acquired Criterion Inc. in October 2025, a US‑based unified HCM (human capital management) provider, for initial consideration of £33m plus up to £16m in earn‑outs. ^[10]

These deals deepen Sage’s cloud portfolio in finance, HR, payroll and spend management – the sweet spot for SMB digital transformation.

Looking ahead, Sage guided to organic total revenue growth of 9% or above in FY26, with operating margins expected to “continue trending upwards” as the business scales. ^[11]

£300m share buyback: capital returns step up

Alongside its FY25 results, Sage announced a sizeable share buyback programme of up to £300m, running from 19 November 2025 to no later than 19 March 2026. ^[12]

The programme:

Is being executed via non‑discretionary mandates with J.P. Morgan Securities and Morgan Stanley, which act as riskless principals and make trading decisions independently within preset parameters. ^[13]
Aims explicitly to reduce Sage’s share capital: all repurchased shares are being cancelled. ^[14]

Since the announcement, there has been a steady drumbeat of “Transaction in Own Shares” RNS releases:

21 November 2025: RNS confirms the first purchases under the programme (926,428 shares). ^[15]
24–26 November 2025: further daily buybacks, including 715,428 shares on 26 November at prices mainly between roughly 1,057p and 1,087p. ^[16]
28 November 2025: additional repurchases disclosed, followed the same day by a Total Voting Rights notice. ^[17]
1 December 2025: Sage buys another 826,726 shares at a volume‑weighted average price of 1,065.25p, again for cancellation. ^[18]

A separate “Total Voting Rights” announcement shows the cumulative effect: by 28 November 2025, total exercisable voting rights had fallen to 961,657,660, down from 963,464,237 at the end of October. ^[19]

In plain English: buybacks are already nibbling away at the free‑float share count, modestly enhancing EPS and signalling confidence in Sage’s cash generation and long‑term prospects.

Dividend hike and income profile

Income investors haven’t been left out. For FY25, Sage has:

Proposed a final dividend of 14.4p per share, taking the full‑year dividend to 21.85p, up 7% from 20.45p in FY24. ^[20]
Set an expected ex‑dividend date of 8 January 2026 and a payment date of 10 February 2026 for the final dividend, according to dividend calendars and broker data. ^[21]

At a share price around 1,066p, the trailing dividend yield is roughly 2.0%, with the dividend growing in the mid‑single‑digit to high‑single‑digit range year‑on‑year. ^[22]

Taken together with the buyback, FY25 marks a clear step‑up in capital returns, funded by high cash conversion and a balance sheet showing net debt at about 1.7x underlying EBITDA, comfortably in management’s target range. ^[23]

Analyst sentiment on 2 December 2025: “Hold” with 20–25% upside

Fresh on 2 December, MarketBeat reports that seven covering brokers currently give Sage a consensus rating of “Hold”, with four holds and three buys. The average 12‑month price target is 1,300p, implying about 22% upside versus the current share price. The target range runs from 1,100p on the low end to 1,500p on the high end. ^[24]

TipRanks, which aggregates 13 Wall Street‑style analyst views over the last three months, paints a slightly more positive picture:

Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy” (5 buys, 7 holds, 1 sell)
Average price target: 1,319p
High / low: 1,500p / 1,050p
Implied upside: about 22.8% from a reference price of 1,074.5p. ^[25]

On top of that, the Financial Times’ forecast page shows:

18 analysts with a median target of 1,345p, high 1,600p, low 1,050p
A median implied upside of roughly 25% versus the last price of 1,074p. ^[26]

A separate piece on Yahoo Finance summarising “recent analyst shifts” notes that the consensus price target has edged down from about £13.49 to £13.23 per share after some brokers trimmed their numbers post‑results, even as others remain supportive. ^[27]

Meanwhile, the latest MarketBeat note highlights some of the key broker moves:

JPMorgan reiterating an “overweight” stance
Deutsche Bank cutting its target from 1,350p to 1,250p and keeping a “hold” rating
Canaccord Genuity upgrading Sage to “hold” with a 1,100p target after previously being more cautious. ^[28]

Bottom line: the Street is broadly constructive on Sage’s fundamentals and AI‑cloud strategy, but not euphoric. The consensus narrative is “quality, steady compounder” rather than explosive high‑growth tech – with most models baking in mid‑single to low‑double‑digit revenue growth, modest margin expansion and low‑to‑mid‑20% total return potential.

Fundamental valuation: modest undervaluation, high returns on capital

Third‑party valuation models add another angle:

AlphaSpread estimates Sage’s intrinsic value at around 1,275p per share under its base‑case scenario, versus a current market price near 1,065–1,075p, implying the stock is roughly 16% undervalued. ^[29]
That intrinsic value is the average of a DCF estimate around 917p and a relative‑valuation estimate around 1,634p, illustrating how sensitive the result is to assumptions about growth and peer multiples. ^[30]

AlphaSpread also highlights Sage’s strong profitability profile:

Gross margin around 93%
Operating margin roughly 21%
Free cash flow margin close to 19%
Return on equity (ROE) of about 40.7%. ^[31]

Separately, Simply Wall St flags Sage as a business dominated by institutional ownership, with around 86% of the shares held by institutions and the top 14 shareholders collectively owning about 51% of the company. Insiders hold less than 1%, and the general public owns about 11%. ^[32]

That ownership structure tends to tie Sage’s fate closely to institutional sentiment – especially when combined with an active buyback programme that gradually shrinks the free float.

Short‑term technical picture: horizontal trend, “hold/accumulate” signals

From a pure chart‑based standpoint, technical research service StockInvest.us currently classifies Sage as a “hold/accumulate” candidate:

On 1 December 2025, the stock closed at 1,074p, down slightly from 1,074.5p the prior session. ^[33]
Over the last 10 trading days it has drifted modestly lower, but remains within a wide horizontal trading range.
StockInvest’s models expect, with 90% probability, that Sage will trade roughly between 1,085p and 1,205p over the next three months, unless the current range decisively breaks. ^[34]

The same analysis highlights:

Near‑term support from accumulated volume around 1,068p
Initial resistance levels around 1,089–1,100p
Medium daily volatility of about 1.6%. ^[35]

Crucially, StockInvest also issues several “sell” signals from moving averages and MACD, which offset a recent short‑term buy signal from a pivot bottom, leading the service to label Sage overall as a hold rather than a clear buy or sell. ^[36]

This kind of technical view is about trading dynamics, not business quality, but it lines up neatly with the fundamental consensus: no screaming bargain, no disaster – a quality name consolidating after a pull‑back.

Strategic positioning: AI, cloud and the SMB backbone

Beyond the numbers, Sage’s strategic story going into 2026 has three main pillars:

1. Cloud and SaaS transition largely de‑risked

With 13% growth in Sage Business Cloud revenue and 23% in cloud‑native products, Sage is now firmly in the SaaS camp rather than a legacy license vendor. ^[37]

High‑quality metrics support that:

Subscription revenue now accounts for the lion’s share of sales
Renewal rate by value sits at 101%, meaning existing customers on average spend slightly more each year. ^[38]

2. AI‑powered workflow, not just AI marketing buzz

Sage’s AI story is less about headline‑grabbing chatbots and more about embedded capabilities:

Sage Copilot surfaces insights, drafts entries and automates routine finance and HR tasks directly inside products like Sage Intacct and Sage X3. ^[39]
New AI agents can act on those insights – approving workflows, flagging anomalies and nudging users – turning AI into workflow automation rather than a separate tool.

For SMB customers with lean finance and HR teams, shaving minutes and errors off every process can be more compelling than a flashy standalone AI app.

3. Targeted acquisitions to fill product gaps

Acquisitions such as ForceManager, Fyle and Criterion extend Sage’s reach across:

Sales productivity and CRM‑adjacent tools (ForceManager / Sage Sales Management)
AI‑augmented expense management and spend control (Fyle)
Mid‑market HCM and payroll (Criterion). ^[40]

These moves build a broader, integrated platform at a time when SMBs increasingly want a single vendor for finance, HR and payroll rather than a jumble of point solutions.

Risks and what to watch in 2026

Despite the strong FY25 delivery, Sage is not risk‑free. Key issues for investors and analysts to track include:

Valuation vs. growth
Even after the recent pull‑back, mid‑20s P/E multiples leave limited room for disappointment if revenue growth slows below the guided “9% or above” in FY26 or if margin expansion stalls. ^[41]
Competition from global SaaS heavyweights
Sage operates in markets where Intuit, Xero, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP all have ambitions. Maintaining growth while defending pricing power requires continuous product improvement and deep partner relationships.
Execution on AI and integrations
Rolling out AI at scale and integrating acquisitions like Criterion without disrupting customers is non‑trivial. Missteps here could trigger higher churn or slower new‑business wins. ^[42]
Macro sensitivity of the SMB base
Sage’s customers are predominantly SMBs in North America and Europe. A sharper‑than‑expected downturn or prolonged tight credit conditions could slow new customer acquisition or upsell.
Capital allocation balance
The £300m buyback is welcomed by many shareholders, but investors will watch to ensure Sage continues to prioritise productive R&D and targeted M&A over financial engineering. ^[43]

If Sage can keep delivering double‑digit ARR growth, gradual margin expansion, and disciplined capital returns while turning its AI investments into tangible customer value, the current consensus view of low‑to‑mid‑20% upside could prove conservative. Conversely, any sign that growth is slipping into the mid‑single digits while the multiple stays elevated could prompt more aggressive target cuts like those seen in the latest analyst revisions.

Should investors buy Sage Group shares now?

On 2 December 2025, the market’s verdict on Sage looks something like this:

Business quality: high – sticky recurring revenue, strong margins, excellent cash conversion and ROE north of 40%. ^[44]
Strategic momentum: solid – AI‑enabled cloud products, focused SMB positioning, and bolt‑on acquisitions that deepen the platform. ^[45]
Valuation: not cheap, but not excessive for the profile – trading below most analyst and intrinsic‑value estimates, yet still at a premium to the broader UK market. ^[46]
Market mood: measured – consensus “Hold/Moderate Buy”, modestly trimmed targets, and technicals that point to consolidation rather than a clear trend. ^[47]