I see a positive spin on the news.........Pioneering software group Citrix Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:CTXS - news), whose shares were savaged last month on an earnings warning, said on Wednesday second-quarter operating net income fell by nearly a third to $20.8 million.
Per-share profits, excluding amortization charges arising from business combinations, for the quarter ended June 30 were 10 cents. Operating net in last year's quarter was $30.2 million, or 16 cents a share, the company said in a news release.
Analysts on average had forecast profits at 10 cents a share, after the company lowered its guidance, according to First Call/Thomson Financial, which tracks such data.
A leader in shifting software functions from desktop machines to central computers and the Internet, Citrix said net income, including the amortization charges, totalled $15 million, or 7 cents a share. Comparable net a year earlier was $27.8 million, or 15 cents a share.
Net revenues at Fort Lauderdale-based Citrix, rose 12 percent to $106.1 million from $94.4 million for the same three months in 1999.
``The second quarter was the most challenging quarter since our public offering in 1995,'' Citrix President Mark Templeton said in a conference call with institutional investors.
Citrix last month said some key business deals were taking longer to complete than had been expected and that revenues and profits would be below earlier forecasts, an announcement which knocked the company's stock down by 46 percent on June 12.
Citrix executives said some of the delayed deals with big customers had been closed in recent weeks but that sales growth would be modest in the current third quarter as more business moved to electronic licensing of Citrix software from selling packages of software.
John Cunningham, chief financial officer, said Citrix saw ``sequential middle single-digit growth'' of revenues in the three months through September 30 and more sequential growth in the fourth quarter.
Sarah Mattson, analyst at Dain Rauscher Wessels, said the evolution to electronic licensing as a higher share of the company's business, would likely drag on the company's revenue growth until late 2000 or early next year.
Before earnings were released, shares of Citrix closed at 22-1/8, down one but above a 52-week low hit in June after Citrix made its unexpected earnings comments. Shares of Citrix had risen to more than $122 each in March.
Citrix also said its founder, Ed Iacobucci, was leaving as chairman in a management shake-up. Citrix is also searching for a new chief executive to replace Templeton.
During the search for a new chief executive to replace Templeton, who remains president of Citrix, former CEO Roger Roberts is acting as chief operating officer. Roberts was CEO from 1990 to 1998.
Email this story - View most popular stories emailed |
