PSFT ($34-$38) P/E 63..Beats by 2 cents, software sales jump 51%
Tuesday July 24, 5:13 pm Eastern Time
PeopleSoft's Q2 software sales jump 51 percent
(UPDATE: Adds details throughout, company comment, stock performance)
PLEASANTON, Calif., July 24 (Reuters) - Business automation software maker PeopleSoft Inc. (NasdaqNM:PSFT - news) handily beat Wall Street's consensus forecast for the second quarter on Tuesday after its software sales jumped 51 percent from a year ago, when it had not yet released its revenue-accelerating PeopleSoft 8 product.
``PeopleSoft's strong performance in this challenging economic environment is a direct result of continued market acceptance of PeopleSoft 8 enterprise applications and our diligent focus on precision management and execution,'' Craig Conway, PeopleSoft's president and chief executive said in a statement.
PeopleSoft shares, which finished Tuesday's regular Nasdaq session 27 cents lower at $34.24, jumped to $37 in heavy volume on Instinet following the company's earnings report.
The stock's value has increased more than 60 percent since the end of 1999, while shares of rival Oracle Corp. (NasdaqNM:ORCL - news) lost 35 percent of their value.
Pleasanton, California-based PeopleSoft on Tuesday said second-quarter net income from recurring operations rose 188 percent to $46 million, or 14 cents a share, from $16 million, or 6 cents, last year.
The company's second-quarter 2001 results included a favorable after-tax adjustment to existing restructuring reserves of $2.6 million and an after-tax charge of $1.1 million related to the acquisition of SkillsVillage.
Including nonrecurring items, PeopleSoft earned $47.4 million, or 15 cents a diluted share.
Analysts, on average, had expected the company to earn 12 cents a share on revenue of $498.7 million, according to Thomson Financial/First Call.
PeopleSoft's software license revenues jumped 51 percent, to $166.3 million after the company inked deals with customers such as AT&T Wireless (NYSE:AWE - news), the U.S. Department of Defense, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. (NYSE:MWD - news) and Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF - news)
Those deals helped push total revenues 27 percent higher to $532.7 million from $420.2 million last year. |
