Tibco Stock Drops On Missed Sales Numbers

The shares of Palo Alto, California-based Tibco, an integration software company, fell to $12.08 in after-hours trading, according to Instinet. During the regular session, Tibco shares dropped 2.2 percent to close at $12.87 on the Nasdaq.

"The stock is going to go down because of their revenues, but it's not a really ugly quarter," said John DiFucci, an analyst with CIBC World Markets. He noted that other balance sheet measures -- such as the number of days it takes Tibco to collect money from its customers -- were encouraging.

For the fiscal first quarter ended March. 1, Tibco saw its revenues fall to $74 million from $82.1 million in the first quarter of 2001.

DiFucci said he had expected Tibco to book revenues of $75.3 million in the latest quarter.

"So they missed the top line," he said.

Analysts, on average, were expecting Tibco to post revenues of $76.5 million for the first quarter, according to tracking firm Thompson Financial/First Call.

Analysts also pointed to disappointing software license revenues.

"License revenue was light and disappointing," said George Godfrey, an analyst with ABN Amro, in a research note to clients.

License revenues, a key measure of a software company's core success, fell to $46.9 million from $58.3 million a year ago.

Still, Tibco posted a net profit of $3.4 million, or 2 cents a share, reversing a net loss of $403,129, or break even, in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding amortization of goodwill and stock compensation, Tibco -- whose integration software enables different computer systems to communicate with each other -- posted a pro forma first-quarter profit of $9.4 million, or 4 cents a share. That compares with pro forma income of $12.4 million, or 6 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Earlier this month, Tibco's Chief Executive Vivek Ranadive said the company was comfortable with Wall Street's consensus estimate for a profit, before items, of 4 cents a share for the fiscal fourth quarter.

Ranadive also said he was comfortable with analysts' estimates for full-year 2002. Those estimates call for Tibco to post earnings in the range of 16 cents to 20 cents a share, with revenues between $335 million and $350 million, First Call said.

Analysts have been eyeing the end of Tibco's quarter closely, especially in light of No. 2 U.S software company Oracle 's earnings warning earlier this month.

Reuters Group Plc. holds a significant stake in Tibco.

REUTERS

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