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Technology Stocks : Computer Associates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Box-By-The-Riviera™ who wrote (4551)	6/15/2000 3:48:00 PM
From: DEER HUNTER	Respond to of 5232

these guys are sooooooo wacky! Thursday June 15, 3:33 pm Eastern Time Computer Associates weighs options to boost stock price NEW YORK, June 15 (Reuters) - In an effort unglue its stock price from the sticky 50s, Computer Associates International Inc. (NYSE:CA - news) is considering modifying its earnings presentation, issuing a tracking stock or breaking up the company, an senior executive said Thursday. Doug Robinson Sr., vice president of investor relations at the business software maker, also took issue with analysts who left a briefing on Monday with the sense that CA officials were vague and unenthusiastic, and interpreted that as a negative sign for the company's current first quarter. The quarter ends June 30. ``We're not going to say the quarter is in the bag,'' Robinson said Thursday at the Bear Stearns 11th Annual Technology Conference in New York. "It never is until the 11th hour. But I think some of the controversy over Monday and one person seeing some body language, I think that was misinterpreted. After the Monday meeting, the company's stock fell 8, or 13.5 percent, to 51 on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares were up 3/4 at 53 Thursday afternoon. ``It is too early for us to make any predictions for the quarter. We tend to be probably one of the more conservative management teams -- winking and talking about the quarter,'' he said. ``The business is there. The external environment very positive and CA's positioning is very, very positive.'' Computer Associates' performance rests in its ability to deliver complex software infrastructure and applications that run the businesses of large companies, he said, because there is no doubt that demand for such products and services is strong. ``I think the caveat for us at this point is internal execution. It's not external competition,'' he said. ``The business is there. It's doable. We can't make promises. We just have to get it done.'' At the meeting on Monday, one analyst told Chairman and Chief Executive Charles Wang and President and Chief Operating Officer Sunjay Kumar that they seemed less enthusiastic than usual. The two executives responded by pounding on the table to demonstrate excitement, according to people who were there. Computer Associates did not permit reporters to attend that meeting. In another matter, Robinson said the company was weighing options to increase its stock price. Computer Associates, which makes more than 800 software products that help a business operate, has seen smaller, younger software companies with high growth grab the attention of investors, while shares of the $7 billion company hardly budges. ``In the end, our job is to return shareholder value,'' he said. ``Frankly value hasn't been there. The dilemma for us is do we break the company up into the components pieces, spin them out, reduce ourselves to the level of the competition...or do we do a tracking kind of stock.'' A company may issue a tracking stock, which is traded separately, to highlight a particular sector's performance. AT&T Corp. recently raised $10.6 billion by launching a tracking stock for its wireless telephone unit. Later Robinson said the Islandia, N.Y.-based company would start to break out the contribution of its high-growth units such as its information management business, when it reports its quarterly earnings. The company has made no decision as to what may be broken out or when. Last month, the company said its earnings rose to $551 million, or $1.13 per share, in its fourth quarter, from $458 million, or 90 cents, in the same period a year earlier. The results excluded the impact of accounting for goodwill tied to its $4 billion acquisition of Sterling Software Inc. For the current quarter, the company has factored into its guidance to analysts the stresses associated with integrating the two companies. Email this story - View most popular stories emailed