VeriSign Rises After More Than Sixfold Jump in First-Qtr Sales
Mountain View, California, April 27 (Bloomberg) -- VeriSign Inc. shares rose as much as 18 percent after the manager of Web- site addresses said first-quarter sales rose more than sixfold and it expects to meet profit forecasts this period.
VeriSign shares rose $8.13 to $54.35 in early trading before the regular open of the Nasdaq stock market. The shares fell 38 cents to $46.22 yesterday and had dropped 38 percent this year.
The Mountain View, California-based company said late yesterday that first-quarter sales jumped to $213.4 million from $34.1 million a year earlier, and it plans to buy back as much as $350 million of its stock. Its loss in the period widened to $1.38 billion, or $6.90 a share, because of acquisition costs, from $26.2 million, or 24 cents.
Excluding amortization, stock-based compensation expenses, and investment gains and losses, VeriSign said it would have earned 14 cents a share, above the 13-cent average estimate of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Chief Financial Officer Dana Evan said VeriSign expects to meet analysts' second-quarter profit forecasts of 14 cents a share, before merger costs, on sales of $233 million. She also repeated full-year profit forecasts of 56 cents to 60 cents a share on sales of $975 million to $1 billion. |
