|
Avant! CEO says quarter going well
Reuters Story - June 06, 1997 16:14
FINANCIAL DPR ELI US RESF AVNT LU CDN V%REUTER P%RTR
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 6 (Reuter) - Avant! Corp's current
quarter is going "extremely well" despite criminal and
shareholder lawsuits against the engineering software company,
Chief Executive Gerald Hsu said Friday.
Avant!, which writes software to help electrical engineers
design computer chips, also will announce more major deals in
coming months, following a long-term contract with Lucent
Technologies Inc announced today.
"Our second-quarter is going extremely, extremely stong,"
Hsu said in an emotional conference call.
"This shows the customers' strong commitment, even after
this legal action. The customers are no fools. They demonstrate
their confidence with us. They demonstrate it in the best way
-- with their pocket books," Hsu said.
In April, Hsu and other Avant! executives were charged with
alleged conspiracy and theft of trade secrets from Cadence
Design Systems Inc , a bitter rival. Avant!'s stock
plunged 50 percent then on concerns that customers would be
scared away.
As a measure of Avant!'s strong business, Hsu said during
the conference all that, at the going pace, he expects Avant!
to have $600,000 in bookings per employee by the end of the
year. Intel, he said, had $520,000 in bookings per employee per
year.
"We were managing for the past year $500,000," he said.
"this year we are approaching $600,000 per employee per year."
Hsu also reiterated he will not resign, despite criminal
charges against him.
"The charges are false, and I'm not going to leave,
period."
Trading of Avant!'s stock had been halted before the
announcements were made. Its shares rose 3-7/8 to 25 on Nasdaq
trading of 1.14 million shares.
|
