Anite Plc's shares fall by as much as 11 percent, after the softwarecompany says it needs to put in a strong fourth-quarter to meet its expectationsfor the year, and that its order intake is lower than a year earlier.
The company, which supplies handset testing software to Samsung ElectronicsCo Ltd, BlackBerry and Ericsson, saysthat pretax profit for the nine months to Jan. 31 is ahead of last year,"broadly in line" with Anite's expectations.
However, Anite is saying broadly in line as opposed to in line, PanmureGordon & Co analyst George O'Connor says, adding that "broadly is basically abit of a caution and you can argue a bit of the hot money is moving out."
The statement from Anite appears to be largely unexpected by the markets.
Anite was very much in favour with the research community. According to dataThomson Reuters StarMine, Anite scores 95 on a weighted scale of analystsentiment. The scale, which peaks at 100, measures analysts' revisions toindicators such as earnings and revenue estimates and changes to their investorrecommendations.
"The market needs to get a sense from management about their confidence interms of meeting numbers for the full year," Jefferies & Co analyst Milan Radiasays, but maintains his 'buy' stance for Anite's stock, saying that the companyis on track to deliver 10 to 12 percent growth comfortably over the next fewyears.
Ahead of the announcement top analysts expected earnings to grow 16.8percent over the coming 12-months, and the stock was highly rated on 17.2 timesforward 12 months price-to-earnings, well above its benchmark FTSE 250 on 13.83times and 40 percent above its own historical average, according to Starmine.
Shares are trading down about 8 percent at 142.05 pence at 0932 GMT on theLondon Stock Exchange on Monday.
To see Anite's statement, please click on
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