[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Link

Hot Stocks

Fri, 28 Jan 2000, 2:37pm EST

Sapient Shares Fall as 4th-Qtr Earnings Fail to Beat Estimates

By Michael Lovell

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Sapient Corp.'s shares fell as much as 20 percent after the company's fourth-quarter earnings failed to beat expectations, following a doubling of its shares over the past three months.

The shares of Sapient, which helps companies build software and Internet systems, fell 20 11/16 to 98 13/16 in late morning trading. Earlier, they touched 96.

Sapient reported after the market's close yesterday that fourth-quarter pro forma net income, excluding costs associated with the acquisition of E-Lab LLC in October, rose to $10.5 million, or 16 cents a share, from $5.98 million, or 10 cents, a year earlier. That matched the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.

``Although the quarter was good, my guess is it didn't meet some of the expectations people had for it, given the tremendous run-up it has had,'' said Wayne Segal, an analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston.

Including costs of the acquisition, net income rose more than eightfold to $9.47 million, or 14 cents a share, from $1.15 million, or 2 cents, a year earlier. Revenue rose 52 percent to $81.8 million from $53.8 million.

The company's shares have more than doubled since Oct. 21, when it reported third-quarter profit of 29 cents a share, slightly higher than the 28-cent average estimate of analysts polled by First Call. That day, Sapient also announced a 2-for-1 stock split and said demand for its electronic-commerce services is rising.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 28, 2000

Answers

shut up

-- moo boo (moo@boo.iu), June 23, 2004.