| |
DY (Dycom)....I'm back in today at $34. Hope you've taken advantage of the bargain price today.
*********************************************************************
Dycom Drops on Report That Chairman Says Isn't True (Update5)
Dycom Drops on Report That Chairman Says Isn't True (Update5) (Adds details from report in 5th paragraph, company comment in 6th paragraph.)
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Dycom Industries Inc. which lays cable for telephone and cable- television providers, fell 14 percent on a report of accounting irregularities that the company says is incorrect.
Dycom fell 6 3/16 to 37 1/2 in trading of 3.6 million shares, almost 20 times its three-month daily average. Earlier, they touched 33.
The Center for Financial Resource and Analysis Inc., a Rockville, Maryland-based independent-research company headed by accounting professor Howard Schilit, published a report on Dycom in its newsletter, a spokeswoman said. She declined to provide a copy of the report, and said Schilit wouldn't talk to reporters.
The newsletter misinterpreted Dycom's third-quarter filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and ''made some assumptions that aren't correct,'' Chairman Thomas Pledger said in an interview. He said the newsletter content was read to him and he hadn't seen it himself.
The report suggested Dycom may have artificially boosted revenue and earnings by being more aggressive in recognizing revenue than previously, according to analysts who'd seen the newsletter. ''We can defend anything he (Schilit) says,'' Dycom General Counsel Mark Tiller said. Schilit didn't contact the company before releasing the report, and wouldn't take calls from Dycom executives today, Tiller added. ''I disagree with several of the conclusions they reached and, in general, believe the market overreacted,'' said Christopher Gutek, a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst who has an ''outperform'' rating on Dycom's stock.
Recent Results
Dycom's consolidated financial statements for the three years ending July 31, 1998, conform ''with generally accepted accounting principles,'' outside auditors Deloitte & Touche LLP wrote in a letter dated Aug. 31, 1998, and included in Dycom's prospectus for the sale of 2.7 million shares in May. Its financial report for the year ended July 31 hasn't been released. ''I am not aware of any instances where their accounting practices have been called into question,'' said Morgan Keegan & Co. analyst Ramkrishna Kasargod, who also has an ''outperform'' rating on the stock.
Dycom, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, also provides engineering and maintenance services for aerial and underground fiber-optic, coaxial and copper cable systems owned by telephone companies and cable-TV operators.
NYSE/AMEX delayed 20 min. NASDAQ delayed 15 min. |
|
