BEA Systems first-quarter profit triples
By Deborah Adamson, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 5:52 PM ET May 15, 2001
SAN JOSE, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- BEA Systems Tuesday said its first-quarter profit tripled and sales rose 67 percent from a year ago as the software developer continued to gain market share.
BEA, whose software integrates e-commerce applications with older networks, also said it expects to meet profit estimates for the second quarter and the full year.
BEA (BEAS: news, msgs, alerts) reported pro forma first-quarter profit of $35.9 million, or 8 cents a share, up from $12.4 million, or 3 cents, a year earlier. Results beat the estimate of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial by a penny.
On a pro forma operating basis, the first quarter looked even better in a year-over-year comparison: Earnings quadrupled to $46 million from $13.3 million. Yet profit fell 18 percent in the seasonally slower first quarter from the fourth quarter.
Sales reached $257 million, from $154 million a year earlier.
During the quarter, license-fee revenue rose 89 percent to $161.2 million from the prior year. Bookings for the quarter were in line with management's expectations.
Pro forma figures exclude non-cash and one-time items, such as expenses related to acquisitions and a net gain on investments.
Including all the items, BEA Systems' net income would be $20.6 million, or 5 cents a share, compared with a loss of $12.4 million, or 3 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Commenting on reports that rival IBM (IBM: news, msgs, alerts) is gaining market share, Chairman and CEO Bill Coleman said in a conference call that this competitor has posted consistently lower growth rates than BEA Systems. He did not specifically identify IBM.
Coleman also said his company is looking for opportunities to make acquisitions, focusing on small, privately held tech companies whose products would extend BEA Systems' platform, whose operations could be integrated rapidly and whose business would be accretive rapidly.
In the first quarter, the company had record cash flow from operations of $87.9 million, up 210 percent from a year ago.
Shares of BEA Systems rose by $1.75 to $36.07 in after-hours trading, adding to a 4 percent increase during the regular session.
Deborah Adamson is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in Los Angeles.
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