Acxiom Reports Fiscal 4Q Profit

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Acxiom Corp. on Wednesday reported a fiscal fourth-quarter profit but the company's revenue fell short of analyst estimates.

Shares of Acxiom, which specializes in data integration services, data warehousing and decision support services, fell 59 cents, or 6.2 percent, to $8.95 in afternoon trading.

Acxiom earned $22.5 million, or 29 cents per share, compared with a loss of $58.3 million, or 76 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. The company's results were hurt in the fourth-quarter of last year by significant restructuring costs.

When excluding certain items, Acxiom earned 25 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who generally exclude one-time items from their estimates, expected a profit of 22 cents per share.

Revenue fell nearly 16 percent to $295.5 million from $349.8 million last year. This was also lower than the $302.6 million analysts were expecting.

Acxiom's information services revenue decreased 9 percent to $218.9 million, while information products revenue dropped 30 percent to $76.6 million. The company said the drop in revenue was partly due to factors such as the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange.

For the full 2009 fiscal year, Acxiom earned $37.5 million, or 48 cents per share, compared with a loss of $7.8 million, or 10 cents per share, in the previous fiscal year.

Revenue totaled $1.28 billion, compared with $1.38 billion in fiscal 2008.