Ask Jeeves - Notícia
Enviado: 29/5/2003 19:05Ask Jeeves to Shed Slumping Division
Wed May 28, 8:37 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Reinvigorated Internet search engine provider Ask Jeeves Inc. on Wednesday said it is shedding a weak link to focus on more lucrative operations that have turned the company's stock into a hot commodity.
Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves agreed to sell a business software division to a rival, Kanisa, for $4.25 million. The sale, affecting 41 Ask Jeeves employees, is expected to close during the summer.
Revenue at the divested division, called Jeeves Solutions, has been slumping at the same time Ask Jeeves has been attracting more advertising to its popular online search sites, Ask.com and Teoma.com.
Jeeves Solutions registered revenue of $15.4 million last year, a 55 percent decline from $34.4 million in 2001. At that time, Jeeves Solutions had emerged as the most stable part of the company, accounting for half of Ask Jeeves' 2001 revenue.
But Ask Jeeves' prospects have since been reshaped by new programs that enable advertisers to bid for the right to have their Web links prominently displayed alongside online search requests related to their products and services.
"It really has become a phenomenon and I really think it is going to get even bigger," Ask Jeeves CEO Skip Jeeves said in an interview Wednesday.
Propelled by the influx of ads, Ask Jeeves' Web sites attracted $58.8 million in revenue, an 83 percent improvement that helped the company become profitable for the first time in its seven-year history.
The breakthrough has lifted Ask Jeeves' long-sagging stock out of the dot-com doldrums.
Before Wednesday's announcement, Ask Jeeves' shares surged 99 cents to close at $14.21 on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. That's more than five times higher than where Ask Jeeves' stock stood just five months ago, but the price remains far from its 1999 high of $190.50 per share.
After the announcement, the stock relinquished 66 cents in extended trading Wednesday as investors apparently reacted to a separate disclosure about Ask Jeeves seeking to raise $100 million in a bond offering. The bonds can be converted into a stock, an event that could decrease the value of existing shares.
With Wednesday's sale news, Ask Jeeves revised its financial outlook for the rest of the year. Management now expects its revenue from continuing operations to total $94 million, above a previous goal of $92 million. The consensus estimate among analysts polled by Thomson First Call had been $104 million, which included a full year's contribution from Jeeves Solution.
Ask Jeeves raised its full-year profit target by a penny to 26 cents per share, excluding possible charges that management says won't affect the company's ongoing operations. The consensus estimate among analysts had been 27 cents per share.
Wed May 28, 8:37 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Reinvigorated Internet search engine provider Ask Jeeves Inc. on Wednesday said it is shedding a weak link to focus on more lucrative operations that have turned the company's stock into a hot commodity.
Emeryville, Calif.-based Ask Jeeves agreed to sell a business software division to a rival, Kanisa, for $4.25 million. The sale, affecting 41 Ask Jeeves employees, is expected to close during the summer.
Revenue at the divested division, called Jeeves Solutions, has been slumping at the same time Ask Jeeves has been attracting more advertising to its popular online search sites, Ask.com and Teoma.com.
Jeeves Solutions registered revenue of $15.4 million last year, a 55 percent decline from $34.4 million in 2001. At that time, Jeeves Solutions had emerged as the most stable part of the company, accounting for half of Ask Jeeves' 2001 revenue.
But Ask Jeeves' prospects have since been reshaped by new programs that enable advertisers to bid for the right to have their Web links prominently displayed alongside online search requests related to their products and services.
"It really has become a phenomenon and I really think it is going to get even bigger," Ask Jeeves CEO Skip Jeeves said in an interview Wednesday.
Propelled by the influx of ads, Ask Jeeves' Web sites attracted $58.8 million in revenue, an 83 percent improvement that helped the company become profitable for the first time in its seven-year history.
The breakthrough has lifted Ask Jeeves' long-sagging stock out of the dot-com doldrums.
Before Wednesday's announcement, Ask Jeeves' shares surged 99 cents to close at $14.21 on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. That's more than five times higher than where Ask Jeeves' stock stood just five months ago, but the price remains far from its 1999 high of $190.50 per share.
After the announcement, the stock relinquished 66 cents in extended trading Wednesday as investors apparently reacted to a separate disclosure about Ask Jeeves seeking to raise $100 million in a bond offering. The bonds can be converted into a stock, an event that could decrease the value of existing shares.
With Wednesday's sale news, Ask Jeeves revised its financial outlook for the rest of the year. Management now expects its revenue from continuing operations to total $94 million, above a previous goal of $92 million. The consensus estimate among analysts polled by Thomson First Call had been $104 million, which included a full year's contribution from Jeeves Solution.
Ask Jeeves raised its full-year profit target by a penny to 26 cents per share, excluding possible charges that management says won't affect the company's ongoing operations. The consensus estimate among analysts had been 27 cents per share.
