InterWorld 3rd-Quarter Loss to Be Wider Than Expected
New York, Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- InterWorld Corp. shares fell 60 percent after the maker of software for doing business over the Internet said its third-quarter loss will be wider than analysts' estimates.
The shares fell 5.47 to 3.69 on trading of 6 million, more than 16 times its three-month daily average. They had the biggest percentage loss in U.S. trading, wiping out $159.6 million in market value.
InterWorld, whose customers include Walt Disney Co. and Verizon Communications, expects to lose 35 cents to 43 cents a share, excluding amortization of stock-based compensation. That's wider than the 18-cent average loss estimate of six analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
The New York-based company lost 40 cents a share in the year- earlier period. It will announce actual results Oct. 23.
InterWorld's software helps identify customers when they go to a Web site and retrieves data on customers' buying patterns. It also helps process transactions, from the time a purchase is made to the actual delivery of goods.
Revenue is forecast to be $14 million to $18 million. That's below the $20 million to $23 million the company previously expected, spokesman Chris Faust said.
The warning comes as Internet companies cut back on funding that would enable them to buy InterWorld's software. Companies that do have the funds are taking longer to decide on what kind of online-commerce software they want, hurting InterWorld's profit, an analyst said.
``The people who want to have the online presence can take more time to decide what they're doing with their sites'' as there are fewer Internet companies left, said Roy Lobo, an analyst at Moors & Cabot Inc. He said it usually takes an average of four weeks for companies to decide to buy InterWorld's products, and now it's taking three to four months.
Lobo is considering a downgrade on the stock from a ``buy,'' as well as lowering his earnings estimates for the quarter and the year.
The stock had fallen 89 percent this year.
Andria Cheng in the Princeton newsroom, 609-279-4023, or lcheng@bloomberg.net and David Russell in Princeton/jjs
Sep/22/2000 16:19 ET
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