Acxiom Corp. of Little Rock on Thursday swung back from a $3 million loss last year to report a first-quarter profit of $8 million, and announced that it has agreed to sell its Impact email business to Zeta Interactive of New York City for $22 million.
The $8 million equated to earnings of 5 cents per share, an improvement from a loss of 7 cents per share in the same quarter last year. Quarterly revenue was $215 million, up 9 percent from $197 million for the first quarter last year, and every segment of the business grew.
The publicly traded data services company (Nasdaq: ACXM) said the Impact sale is expected to close in the second quarter.
The company also reported that it would enter into a separate multi-year contract to provide Zeta Interactive with services from its connectivity and audience solutions segments.
Acxiom said it would use proceeds from the sale to buy back more shares of stock. Its board of directors has increased the share repurchase authorization by $100 million to $400 million and extended the program through June 30, 2018. During the quarter, Acxiom repurchased 926,000 shares for approximately $20 million.
On the company’s first-quarter results, Acxiom CEO Scott Howe said in a news release, “I am pleased to report a solid first quarter, highlighted by strong financial performance, new partnerships and continued product innovation. Fiscal 2017 is off to a good start, and we are focused on extending our early momentum through the remainder of the year.”
Operating cash flow from continuing operations was $1 million, down from $12 million last year.
Revenue from Acxiom’s connectivity segment was $31 million, up 52 percent compared to the first quarter of last year. The segment added more than 20 new customers and more than 50 new partner integrations during the quarter.
Part of the segment, LiveRamp, extended its data connectivity partnership with Google by adding Customer Match and also added Facebook’s Offline Conversions AP to its set of integrations, enabling brands to activate their first-party data for targeting across YouTube, Search and Gmail and allowing clients to connect Facebook advertising campaigns with offline sales transactions.
The company’s marketing services segment reported revenue of $110 million, up 2 percent from the same quarter last year.
Acxiom’s audience solutions had revenue of $74 million, an increase of 8 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015.
Looking ahead, the company said it expects fiscal 2017 revenue of between $850 million and $870 million, with earnings per share from continuing operations of between 10 cents and 14 cents.
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