Complete Business Solutions Sees Quarterly Profit Ahead Of View
By Andrea Puchalsky
Staff Reporter
DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- Complete Business Solutions Inc. said it expects to be "several cents" ahead of analysts' fourth-quarter earnings expectations of 18 cents or 19 cents a share, excluding an acquisition-related charge of about nine cents a share related to its purchase of Synergy Software Inc.
For the full year, Complete Business Solutions (CBSL), a computer-services company, is "comfortable" it will exceed earnings projections of 78 cents a share, excluding the acquisition charge, according to Tim Manney, Complete Business Solutions executive vice president of finance. Total 1997 revenue is expected to exceed $121 million, for an increase of at least 30%.
Earnings for 1996, restated to include the effect of the Synergy acquisition, were $3.4 million, or 40 cents a share, on revenue of $93 million.
Complete Business Solutions, based in Farmington Hills, Mich., is a provider of information technology services and consultants to large and medium-size corporations. More than 50% of the company's revenue comes from contract programming and application maintenance.
Demand is being driven by several factors, including the shortage of skilled information technology professionals, the so-called Year 2000 problem and the shift from mainframe computers to client-server applications. Complete Business Solutions has more than 3,000 technical professionals world-wide, with more than 2,000 in the U.S.
In late January, the company added 750 consultants through its acquisition of c. w. Costello, in a stock swap valued at more than $70 million. Including the effects of Costello, analysts are predicting Complete Business Solutions will earn $1.08 to $1.10 a share in 1998, excluding an acquisition-related charge of about $2.5 million in the first quarter. Revenue is expected to exceed $245 million in 1998.
Vatikutti says the company is "well in line with industry growth and in some cases above it" and says its goal is to be one of the top 20 players in the information technology field by 2000, when world-wide spending is expected to grow to $300 billion annually |
