Sybase Tops Estimates
SAN FRANCISCO -- Sybase (SY) - Get Report delivered a bigger bottom line in its first quarter Thursday and raised full-year EPS guidance.
Net income at the Dublin, Calif., software company shot up 60% to $24.2 million, or 27 cents a share, from $15.1 million, or 16 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding special items, EPS was 39 cents. Analysts were expecting 34 cents.
Revenue grew 13% to $260.1 million, from $230 million for the same quarter of last year. Analysts were expecting $249.2 million, according to Thomson Financial.
Operating margin during the quarter was 14%, compared with 9% a year ago. Product development and engineering expenses declined 8% year over year, to $35.6 million.
The stock was up 53 cents, or 2%, to $26.99 in recent trading.
"Despite current uncertainty in the macro-economic environment, our business pipelines remain healthy," Chairman and CEO John Chen said in a statement. "We anticipate revenue and cash flow toward the high end of our most recent full-year guidance."
For the second quarter, Sybase projected revenue of $255 million to $265 million and EPS, less items, of 40 cents to 45 cents. Analysts were expecting revenue of $260.7 million and EPS, less items, of 43 cents.
Due to a recently completed stock repurchase, Sybase raised full-year EPS guidance to a range of $1.94 to $1.99, excluding items, from a prior range of $1.85 to $1.90. Revenue is expected to come in toward the high end of the company's previous guidance of $1.075 billion to $1.09 billion. The consensus estimate was for EPS excluding items of $1.89 and revenue of $1.089 billion.
In February, the company agreed to put its cash on hand into a $300 million stock buyback by April 15
in order to avoid a proxy fight
with a hedge-fund shareholder.
In data-management, analytics and mobile software, Sybase competes with
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Report
,
IBM
(IBM) - Get Report
and
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
, which reports revenue after the close of the session Thursday.