Wednesday October 18 2:35 PM ET
Tumbleweed beats forecast, stock slips
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Reuters) - Tumbleweed Communications Corp. (NasdaqNM:TMWD - news), a provider of secure Internet e-mail services, on Wednesday reported third-quarter losses that were slightly less than expected, but its stock still declined sharply.
Shares of the Redwood City, Calif.-based company dropped $16-5/8, or 46 percent, to $19-1/2 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq market, where they were among the biggest percentage losers
Before the market opened, Tumbleweed said it had a net loss of $8.1 million, or 29 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $6.8 million, or 31 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period. The results excluded stock compensation expenses and other costs.
The results just beat a consensus forecast for a third-quarter loss of 30 cents per share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
Tumbleweed said revenues nearly tripled to $12.4 million from $4.4 million in the year-ago quarter on increased transaction fee and license revenues.
Chief Executive Jeffrey Smith said investors might have been concerned that the company's third-quarter accounts receivables line increased to $19.3 million from $5.2 million in the year-ago quarter.
He said the bump came because the company was required to book all of an acquisition's accounts receivables, while it could only report one-third of the purchased company's potential revenues.
Smith said Tumbleweed's revenue growth was expected to accelerate in the fourth quarter and said the company should reach profitability by the end of 2001 |
