geez, surprise surprise...will get beaten down some more.
DoubleClick warns of 4th quarter loss
By William Spain, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 8:03 PM ET Dec 11, 2000 NewsWatch
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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - DoubleClick said after the close of trading Monday that it expects to report a loss for the fourth quarter, missing expectations to turn a profit as a decline in Web advertising cuts into revenue.
The leading Internet ad-server said it expects a fourth quarter loss of 3 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call Corp. had forecast the company would have a profit of 2 cents a share.
Shares in DoubleClick (DCLK: news, msgs) were up 2.6 percent in after-hours trading Monday, hitting $12.25 a share after the stock closed normal trading hours at $11.31 a share. The shares have plunged from a high of $135 a share in early January on concerns that Internet advertising won't live up to its potential.
The company said fourth quarter revenue of between $126 million and $129 million will also fall below expectations, missing by between 8 percent and 10 percent. The company had revenue of $93.7 million in the fourth quarter last year.
DoubleClick said it also expects a loss in the first quarter next year - of 5 cents a share to 7 cents a share - although the company said it still expects to be profitable for the full year.
It said first-quarter revenue will be about 5 percent higher than the $110 million it earned in the first quarter this year, excluding results of e-mail marketer NetCreations and research firm AtPlan, according to Reuters.
The company emphasized its $900 million in cash on hand - "none of it in Internet stocks," according to CFO Stephen Collins, as one hedge against a weak ad marketplace.
Collins also noted that the company's technology solutions remain in demand and that "only our media business has really felt the softening of online advertising."
Collins said media business would be down between 9 percent and 12 percent in the fourth quarter, from the third quarter, according to Reuters.
Certainly, the warning signs of a financial crunch at the company have been there for some time. Last week, the company announced it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce in the face of a softening online ad market.
In mid-November, it low-balled a previously announced $9.25 per share purchase price for AtPlan (APLN: news, msgs) to just $8. And, in early October, after a disappointing third quarter report, DoubleClick warned that fourth-quarter earnings would fall below analyst expectations.
Multiple downgrades followed on the heels of that revelation and the stock slipped into single-digits - a fate it had avoided until that point - although it has subsequently recovered slightly since then.
Analyst Chris Hansen of Banc of America Securities in San Francisco said before today's call that "it is probably a pretty safe assumption that it is not good [since] it comes on the heels of downward guidance" from various other ad-dependent online companies.
"The number of companies [in the sector] that will pre-announce the fourth quarter and the first quarter of next year in the next 30 days will probably exceed the number who don't," Hansen predicted, as slower online ad revenues hit everyone from "portals to online content sites to ad networks who derive their living from advertising."
DoubleClick warns of 4th quarter loss
By William Spain, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 8:03 PM ET Dec 11, 2000 NewsWatch
Latest headlines
Get Alerted
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - DoubleClick said after the close of trading Monday that it expects to report a loss for the fourth quarter, missing expectations to turn a profit as a decline in Web advertising cuts into revenue.
The leading Internet ad-server said it expects a fourth quarter loss of 3 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by First Call Corp. had forecast the company would have a profit of 2 cents a share.
Shares in DoubleClick (DCLK: news, msgs) were up 2.6 percent in after-hours trading Monday, hitting $12.25 a share after the stock closed normal trading hours at $11.31 a share. The shares have plunged from a high of $135 a share in early January on concerns that Internet advertising won't live up to its potential.
The company said fourth quarter revenue of between $126 million and $129 million will also fall below expectations, missing by between 8 percent and 10 percent. The company had revenue of $93.7 million in the fourth quarter last year.
DoubleClick said it also expects a loss in the first quarter next year - of 5 cents a share to 7 cents a share - although the company said it still expects to be profitable for the full year.
It said first-quarter revenue will be about 5 percent higher than the $110 million it earned in the first quarter this year, excluding results of e-mail marketer NetCreations and research firm AtPlan, according to Reuters.
The company emphasized its $900 million in cash on hand - "none of it in Internet stocks," according to CFO Stephen Collins, as one hedge against a weak ad marketplace.
Collins also noted that the company's technology solutions remain in demand and that "only our media business has really felt the softening of online advertising."
Collins said media business would be down between 9 percent and 12 percent in the fourth quarter, from the third quarter, according to Reuters.
Certainly, the warning signs of a financial crunch at the company have been there for some time. Last week, the company announced it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce in the face of a softening online ad market.
In mid-November, it low-balled a previously announced $9.25 per share purchase price for AtPlan (APLN: news, msgs) to just $8. And, in early October, after a disappointing third quarter report, DoubleClick warned that fourth-quarter earnings would fall below analyst expectations.
Multiple downgrades followed on the heels of that revelation and the stock slipped into single-digits - a fate it had avoided until that point - although it has subsequently recovered slightly since then.
Analyst Chris Hansen of Banc of America Securities in San Francisco said before today's call that "it is probably a pretty safe assumption that it is not good [since] it comes on the heels of downward guidance" from various other ad-dependent online companies.
"The number of companies [in the sector] that will pre-announce the fourth quarter and the first quarter of next year in the next 30 days will probably exceed the number who don't," Hansen predicted, as slower online ad revenues hit everyone from "portals to online content sites to ad networks who derive their living from advertising." |
