Little Rock’s Acxiom Corp. on Thursday reported a 55 percent increase in net earnings from the same quarter last year. For the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal 2006, Acxiom reported net earnings of $23.1 million, or 26 cents per share. Revenue grew 7 percent to $344.3 million.
Analysts were expecting earnings of 25 cents per share and $347.7 million in revenue.
Acxiom reported U.S. revenue of $295.8 million, a 10 percent increase from the same quarter last year. International revenue, however, fell 8 percent to $48.5 million.
Acxiom also announced a change of executive guard. Chief Financial Officer Rodger Kline, who has held the position for the past 16 months, is being replaced by Frank Cotroneo, who previously served as CFO for H&R Block and MasterCard International.
Kline will continue to serve as a member of the company’s board of directors and as chief administrative leader, where he will be responsible for hardware and software procurement, facilities and data center support, risk management, internal audit, and physical and information security.
Company Leader Charles Morgan touted the company’s quarterly performance.
“We have accomplished what we said we would after a challenging first quarter of the fiscal year,” Morgan said in a press release. “We met or exceeded all of our fiscal year Financial Road Map targets for total company performance and U.S. results.”
The earnings come at a particularly critical time for the company.
Since last summer San Francisco hedge fund ValueAct Capital Partners, Acxiom’s largest shareholder, has tried to buy all outstanding shares of Acxiom that it does not own after unsuccessful attempts to get a seat on its board of directors.
Earlier this week ValueAct sent a letter to Acxiom shareholders urging them to vote for its three nominees, all of them ValueAct employees, for seats on the company’s board of directors.
In the letter to Acxiom shareholders, ValueAct reiterated its criticisms of Acxiom management. It compared Acxiom’s weak stock price over a five-year period through June 2005, when ValueAct first publicly offered to buy all remaining shares of Acxiom, to peer companies. During that period, Acxiom’s share price dropped 9.8 percent.
ValueAct’s most recent offer is to buy all outstanding shares of Acxiom it does not already own for $25 per share.
The letter also accused Acxiom of an erratic operating record, poor corporate governance and Morgan’s commingling of personal and family finances with those of Acxiom.
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