Silke
12.01.2001, 11:08
Hallo Leute,
hab ich eben in upside com gefunden und dürfte Gestern in der Nachbörse noch nicht bekannt gewesen sein. Upside.com ist nicht DIE Finanzseite im Internet - doch was Feuerstein schreibt hat meistens Hand uns Fuß!
bye
MM
Ariba beats Street, but road ahead looks bumpy
January 12, 2001 12:00 AM PT
by Adam Feuerstein
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Ariba (ARBA) just turn in another outstanding quarter, or was it a harbinger of slower and more challenging times ahead?
At first glance, the b-to-b bellwether turned in another in a long string of "beat the Street" quarters. Ariba earned 5 cents a share, minus certain expenses, on $170 million in revenue for its fiscal first quarter of 2001 -- topping consensus estimates on both counts.
Ariba is now the first of the new crop of b-to-b software companies to post a quarterly operating profit.
And unlike other technology companies that have forecast a gloomy year ahead, confident Ariba executives guided analysts slightly higher than previous estimates. Revenue for fiscal year 2001 is expected to reach $780 million to $790 million, with earnings reaching 25 to 26 cents a share.
No longer white-hot
But make no mistake about it, Ariba is no longer a white-hot software company. Growth is slowing dramatically. The company has become much more guarded about its financial results, and a big change to its accounting procedures has analysts puzzled.
In short, investors looking for analysts to ignite big pop in the company's stock price as a result of Thursday's earnings likely will walk away disappointed.
Ariba was up 8 percent to $43.38 ahead of earnings Thursday, but shares fell in after-hours trading.
"On a fundamental level, Ariba's results were perfectly respectable for a large-cap software company," says Pat Walravens, Lehman Brothers' b-to-b analyst, who rates the stock a "neutral."
"But this is a company that has posted sequential growth rates of 100 percent and 67 percent, respectively, over the last two quarters," he adds. "This quarter's growth rate was 26 percent -- you can't ignore that."
And those growth rates are slowing still. Ariba executives told analysts on its conference call to expect fiscal second-quarter revenue of $180 million to $185 million. That's just 6 percent to 8 percent growth from today's results.
Given the rash of companies issuing earnings warnings these days, investors and analysts should be popping the champagne when a company actually issues a positive forecast. But new Ariba CFO Bob Calderoni acted like a teetotaler at a stag party when he informed analysts that the company was changing the way it negotiates contracts with customers.
Accounting tricks?
The change has led several analysts to speculate that Ariba is using accounting to make up for slowing sales.
Ariba, like most software firms, typically sells customers a lifetime license for its product for a large, one-time fee. That fee is typically recorded as revenue over a 12-month period.
But today, Ariba said it was switching to what it called term-based contracts, which means that customers pay a slightly smaller fee for a three-year license to the software. After the three years are up, Ariba will try to re-sign the customer, insuring another recurring revenue stream for the company.
Here's the kicker: Ariba will now record all its revenue from these term contracts up front, and not over 12 months.
hab ich eben in upside com gefunden und dürfte Gestern in der Nachbörse noch nicht bekannt gewesen sein. Upside.com ist nicht DIE Finanzseite im Internet - doch was Feuerstein schreibt hat meistens Hand uns Fuß!
bye
MM
Ariba beats Street, but road ahead looks bumpy
January 12, 2001 12:00 AM PT
by Adam Feuerstein
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Ariba (ARBA) just turn in another outstanding quarter, or was it a harbinger of slower and more challenging times ahead?
At first glance, the b-to-b bellwether turned in another in a long string of "beat the Street" quarters. Ariba earned 5 cents a share, minus certain expenses, on $170 million in revenue for its fiscal first quarter of 2001 -- topping consensus estimates on both counts.
Ariba is now the first of the new crop of b-to-b software companies to post a quarterly operating profit.
And unlike other technology companies that have forecast a gloomy year ahead, confident Ariba executives guided analysts slightly higher than previous estimates. Revenue for fiscal year 2001 is expected to reach $780 million to $790 million, with earnings reaching 25 to 26 cents a share.
No longer white-hot
But make no mistake about it, Ariba is no longer a white-hot software company. Growth is slowing dramatically. The company has become much more guarded about its financial results, and a big change to its accounting procedures has analysts puzzled.
In short, investors looking for analysts to ignite big pop in the company's stock price as a result of Thursday's earnings likely will walk away disappointed.
Ariba was up 8 percent to $43.38 ahead of earnings Thursday, but shares fell in after-hours trading.
"On a fundamental level, Ariba's results were perfectly respectable for a large-cap software company," says Pat Walravens, Lehman Brothers' b-to-b analyst, who rates the stock a "neutral."
"But this is a company that has posted sequential growth rates of 100 percent and 67 percent, respectively, over the last two quarters," he adds. "This quarter's growth rate was 26 percent -- you can't ignore that."
And those growth rates are slowing still. Ariba executives told analysts on its conference call to expect fiscal second-quarter revenue of $180 million to $185 million. That's just 6 percent to 8 percent growth from today's results.
Given the rash of companies issuing earnings warnings these days, investors and analysts should be popping the champagne when a company actually issues a positive forecast. But new Ariba CFO Bob Calderoni acted like a teetotaler at a stag party when he informed analysts that the company was changing the way it negotiates contracts with customers.
Accounting tricks?
The change has led several analysts to speculate that Ariba is using accounting to make up for slowing sales.
Ariba, like most software firms, typically sells customers a lifetime license for its product for a large, one-time fee. That fee is typically recorded as revenue over a 12-month period.
But today, Ariba said it was switching to what it called term-based contracts, which means that customers pay a slightly smaller fee for a three-year license to the software. After the three years are up, Ariba will try to re-sign the customer, insuring another recurring revenue stream for the company.
Here's the kicker: Ariba will now record all its revenue from these term contracts up front, and not over 12 months.