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Technology Stocks : SAP A.G. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (3184)	4/21/1999 5:46:00 PM
From: Mao II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3424

bp: Gotta agree. Looks good from here. M2

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (3184)	4/21/1999 10:09:00 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 3424

04/21 06:24 FOCUS-SAP<SAPG.F>surges on Q1 results,firm outlook By Paul Carrel FRANKFURT, April 21 (Reuters) - SAP AG <SAPG_p.F> shares surged 15 percent on Wednesday after the business software maker surprised the markets by reporting a sharp rise in first quarter sales and confirmed its forecast for a 20 to 25 percent increase in full-year sales. "I think it's going to be such a breath of relief for the market," said London-based J.P. Morgan analyst Devika Malik, who has a 12-month "buy" recommendation on SAP. "Basically, these results are quite good. The market was expecting the worst." SAP said pre-tax profit fell by one percent to 172 million euros ($183 million) and after-tax profit was unchanged at 98 million euros. "We still anticipate a 20 to 25 percent increase in sales for fiscal 1999, with the pre-tax profit margin improving by up to one percentage point from last year's 21.6 percent after U.S. GAAP," Co-Chief Executive Henning Kagermann said in a statement. The group said first quarter figures were helped by the switch to U.S. GAAP accounting standards from German GAAP standards and by the dissolving of provisions set aside for its STAR employee share reward programme. Analysts said the fall in pre-tax profit, which came amid a 5,000 increase in headcount from the first quarter of 1998, was not as bad as expected. By 0925 GMT, SAP's heavily traded preference shares <SAPG_p.F> were 15.25 percent higher at 314.63 euros. SAP said the dissolution of the STAR (Stock Appreciation Right Programme) provisions yielded 15.5 million euros, which helped buoy profits. "If you take out STAR, we calculate that pre-tax profit was down about 27 percent (under German GAAP) -- that's good. The market was fearing pre-tax profits would fall by 50 percent. Some analysts were saying 80 percent," said J.P Morgan's Malik. SAP said it had issued STAR grants to its employees at the start of the second quarter of 1999 and that these could weigh on earnings for the full-year. Pre-tax profit was burned by a 27 percent increase in operating costs compared to a 22 percent increase in revenues. SAP said first quarter sales were 22 percent higher at 1.08 billion euros according to U.S. GAAP standards. Analysts said that, according to German GAAP, the sales increase was only 20 percent and that pre-tax profit was 17 percent lower. But SAP was performing well compared to its competitors. "Relative to their peers, on an apples to apples basis with other competitors, they distanced themselves. They did better," said Brian Skiba, analyst at Lehman Brothers in London. He pointed to a fall in first quarter results at SAP U.S. competitor PeopleSoft <PSFT.O> on Tuesday. "From the PeopleSoft conference last night, it appeared that Europe was less impacted than the United States by Y2K. That seems to be the same with SAP," said Skiba, who said he was reviewing his "neutral" recommendation on SAP. SAP said its Europe, Middle East and Africa region generated the largest revenue growth in the first quarter, increasing 36 percent to 529 million euros. In the Americas, revenues rose 14 percent to 448 million euros. Analysts say SAP and its competitors are facing reduced demand for their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software programmes this year as customers delay placing orders while they tackle the millennium bug. SAP said the development of its new dimension products -- which are designed to help companies' sales and marketing divisions as well as specific industries -- were buoying sales. "While concern over the Y2K issue still persists, we have noticed increased interest in SAP's R/3 and New Dimension products as our inter-enterprise operability becomes more prominent because of the Internet," SAP America Chief Executive Kevin McKay said in a statement. ((Frankfurt Newsroom +49 69 756525, frankfurt.newsroom@reuters.com)) ($1=.9413 Euro) COPYRIGHT © 1999 REUTERS LIMITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (3184)	4/29/1999 3:02:00 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 3424

SAP seems to be re-establishing a floor at 30; overall earnings reports for U.S. companies this reporting season were better than I expected them to be; Baan does better than expected (which isn't saying much): April 29, 1999 Baan Posts $19 Million Net Loss, But Beats Analysts' Expectations A WALL STREET JOURNAL News Roundup Dutch business software maker Baan NV reported a third successive quarterly net loss, although the latest results exceeded analysts' expectations. For the first-quarter net loss, Baan posted a net loss of $19 million, or nine cents a share, compared to a net profit of $2.1 million, or a one cent a share, in the year-ago quarter. However, the result beat the loss of 11 cents a share forecast by analysts, according to First Call. Sales slipped about 2% to $176 million, compared with $179 million in the year-earlier quarter. Baan remained in the red because of weaker profit margins, the company said in a statement. The slight earnings surprise led some analysts to predict that the worst may be over for the company, which has posted heavy losses following management missteps and a slump in world-wide demand for its products, which has also affected its competitors. Analysts said the company's cost-reduction targets were largely met after it let go 20% of its work force late last year and shuttered a number of offices. Some observers think the company may break even in the next quarter, a few months ahead of expectations. "The results were more or less in line with our expectations," said analyst Edwin Flick of MeesPierson. "The cost structure is a little better than we expected though, which means that restructuring was more thorough than we first thought." Baan's shares rose strongly Wednesday on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, jumping 14%, or 1.10 euros, to 9.05 euros ($9.65). Software-license sales, a key indicator of the company's underlying growth, fell 30% to $65 million in the first quarter from $92.9 million a year earlier, suggesting the company has not yet fully recovered its momentum. Jim Mooney, Baan's newly installed chief financial officer said in a statement that the company had hit its cost-reduction targets "and we believe our cost structure moving forward positions us well in what we expect will continue to be a difficult and challenging market."