Redback mit Gewinnwarnung!!!!!!! - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

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UPDATE 2-Redback warns on profits, sales for quarter
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 2001 9:04 PM
- Reuters

06-27 0613 UPDATE 2-Redback warns on profits, sales for quarter

(Updates with details from conference call, analyst quotes, adds byline)

By Elinor Abreu

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 27 (Reuters) - Redback Networks Inc.
(NASDAQ NM:RBAK) warned on Wednesday that sales in the current quarter
would be more than 30 percent lower than anticipated because of
an "unprecedented downturn" in the market for
telecommunications equipment.

Redback, which provides equipment that lets carriers and Internet providers manage broadband services, also said it would take an unspecified charge for excess and obsolete inventory in its fiscal second quarter and warned of a deeper loss for the period.

Excluding the inventory charge and other one-time items, Redback said its second-quarter pro-forma loss would be 27 to 32 cents per share on revenues of $55 million to $60 million.

Analysts, on average, had expected a loss of 11 cents per share on revenues of $88 million, according to research firm Thomson Financial/First Call, which tracks Wall Street estimates.

The revenue shortfall was due to some of Redback`s biggest customers delaying their network expansion and deferring orders late in the quarter, Redback Chief Financial Officer Dennis Wolf said in a conference call.

"Carriers and providers are meeting customer demand for bandwidth by reallocating capacity within their networks and are only buying equipment to meet the immediate needs of their customers," Wolf said. "We believe that these are delays rather than lost business but our visibility into the next couple of quarters continues to be very difficult."

In an earlier statement, Wolf had said the company had been hit by "an unprecedented downturn in the telecommunications marketplace."

Redback shares fell to $9.34 in after-hours trade on Instinet from $11.31 at the close of regular trade on Nasdaq. The closing price was down 94 percent from the stock`s record high of $191.03 on March 10, 2000.

Wolf said that Redback customers have remained loyal and new ones have been gained, although clients such as Williams Communications Group Inc. (NYSE:WCG), Genuity Inc. (NASDAQ NM:GENU), SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) and BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS) had delayed planned expansions of their networks.

Redback had been cautioning analysts for weeks that it would ship up to 80 percent of its orders at the end of the quarter, said George Notter of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.

"I think the key question is, is Redback`s miss 100 percent indicative of problems in the greater capital spending environment or is Redback losing momentum in some of these key product categories?" Notter said. "They`re selling into a marketplace that is huge and dominated by Nortel Networks

(NYSE:NT), Fujitsu (, Lucent (NYSE:LU) and Alcatel (."

Notter said that Nortel Networks Corp. and Tellabs Inc.
(NASDAQ NM:TLAB) have announced in the last few weeks that their
telecom customers have also been delaying purchases.

"Our view is that there is value in Redback`s business, specifically the SmartEdge 800 optical networking device," he said.

Redback will report its second-quarter results on July 11 and said the lowered revenue projection was preliminary.

The company has undergone a series of management changes, including the resignation of its president and chief executive officer, Vivek Ragavan, in May.

The Redback board also adopted a shareholder rights plan earlier this month following market talk that the company could be a takeover target by Juniper Networks Inc. (NASDAQ NM:JNPR), Alcatel or Nokia (, Notter said.

REUTERS

Rtr 21:04 06-27-01 Copyright 2001, Reuters News Service



RBAK
11.31 +0.90

RELATED SYMBOLS

TLAB
16.63 -0.20

NT
8.42 +0.07

LU
5.87 -0.13

WCG
2.67 +0.02

GENU
2.73 -0.08

SBC
39.40 -0.04

BLS
38.41 -0.33

JNPR
30.22 +0.73

[Kioskmann]

ach was...

[Kioskmann]

Ach so,
dafür, daß diese Meldung schon einen halben Tag bekannt ist, hätte es auch ein Ausrufungszeichen weniger sein dürfen.

[fsch]

Der Wind hat gedreht...