Lost in among a heap of stories this week chronicling Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo was the fact that CA checked in with another fantastic quarter — the latest sign the company is well on its way to recovery from an accounting scandal that crippled the company and its stock for years.
In its third quarter, the management software developer earned $163 million, or 31 cents a share, on sales of $1.1 billion compared to a profit of $50 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.
More important, considering what’s happened to other leading software vendors this earnings season, CA bumped its 2008 revenue target from between $4.15 and $4.2 billion to between $4.25 billion and $4.28 billion.
Analysts had expected CA to earn about 25 cents a share, on average, on sales of $1.04 billion.
It also cut its total expenses from $907 million in the third quarter of last year to $851 million this time around.
“CA has recorded another solid quarter — our fifth in a row,” CEO John Swainson said. “I am confident that CA’s stable customer base and rich product portfolio puts us in a strong position in today’s competitive environment. Our results are clearly showing the benefits of the transformation efforts we began three years ago.”
CA shares are now trading above $24 after slipping to around $20 a share leading up to the earnings report.