CTXS drop..reason...
Gerard Klauer Mattison analyst Michael Cristinziano said he thought the reason
itrix shares fell Thursday wasn't related to the Microsoft break-up ruling,
b t rather the failure of Citrix Chief Financial Officer John Cunningham to
ap ear as scheduled Thursday at the PaineWebber 11th Annual Growth and
Tec nology conference in New York. Another executive appeared instead, he said.
"People think that you're hiding sometimes," when there's a failure to show,
he sa d. "I think that's got a lot more to do with the decline in the stock."
S&P analyst Kessler said he had also heard that the Citrix chief financial
officer had failed to appear, and he thought that might be another reason for
the shar decline.
Kessler noted that Citrix has indicated it is employing a more
enterprise oriented sales strategy - targeting bigger contracts and bigger
customers. ut that requires larger sales cycles, he said, which means higher
numbers for he accounts receivable collection measurement called "days sales
outstanding," or DSO.
Investing in that big-customer strategy already affected profit margins in the
first quarter a d may be a factor in causing concern about second-quarter
results, Kessler said.
Excluding amortization of intangible assets, Citrix reported first-quarter
earnings of 21 cen s a share, compared with 15 cents a year ago. The 21 cents
was also two cents share better than the First Call consensus estimate of 19
cents for the first uarter. Citrix posted first-quarter net revenue of $127.5
million, 50% higher t an a year ago.
Citrix had a "good March quarter," Puricelli said, and the first-quarter
increase in DSO isn't a big issue. "If you peel back the onion, it's perfectly
explainable," he added. |
