Not paying telephone bills? >NTCT
NetScout off 20%: Company Experiencing Phone Problems [not: employee problems,...]
NetScout Systems Inc. (NTCT) shares lost as much as 28% of their value on Tuesday, though a company spokeswoman said the company has released no news which might explain the movement.
David Sommers, NetScout chief financial officer, told Dow Jones Newswires the company will issue a press release sometime later on Tuesday, but was unwilling to comment before officially issuing the statement.
Sommers said he doesn't believe that the news in the forthcoming release will explain the precipitous drop.
Also of note, the only item on the company's Web site's investor relations page Tuesday was a brief note which said local phone calls were not being delivered to its Westford, Mass., headquarters, and listed some toll-free numbers with which to reach the company. NetScout cited "the inability of AT&T to deliver local calls to our HQ."
The company has been having trouble with the roughly 700 phone lines in its new headquarters since it moved into the building in September, according to a company manager affected by the outage.
Sommers acknowledged NetScout is "not happy" with the situation but has "made no decision" regarding its use of AT&T Corp. (T) for local phone service.
AT&T officials weren't immediately available to respond.
There will be no material adverse impact as a result of the outage, he said, as NetScout sells its network-performance-management software primarily through sales representatives in the field, adding that phone service has now been restored.
He did note the unfortunate confluence of events in which the stock price was dropping and anxious investors were having difficulty reaching the company. Aside from any panic that may have been associated with that, Sommers said he knew of no reason for the stock's performance Tuesday.
Shares recently changed hands at $8.36, down $2.11, or 20.2%, on Nasdaq volume of 609,300 shares, well above the daily average of 77,600.
NetScout Systems Inc. (NTCT) has been having trouble with the roughly 700 phone lines in its new headquarters since it moved into the building in September, according to a company manager affected by the outage.
(A story at 3:29 p.m. EST said the company had been having phone troubles with 700 employees.) |
