Acxiom Q4 Profit Beats Estimates; To Buy LiveRamp For Approx. $310 Mln

(RTTNews) - Acxiom (ACXM), an enterprise data, analytics and software-as-a-service company, reported fourth-quarter net loss attributable to company of $29.22 million, compared to profit of $13.24 million, last year. Loss per share to stockholders was $0.38, compared to profit of $0.18. The company recorded non-cash impairment charges of approximately $29 million in the fourth quarter in connection with the write-down of the carrying value of goodwill and other long-lived assets associated with its European operations. Excluding non-cash impairment charges and other unusual items, earnings per share were $0.24, for the quarter.

On average, four analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report profit per share of $0.20 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Total revenue was $277 million, roughly flat compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013. Analysts expected revenue of $278.57 million for the quarter.

Acxiom announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held LiveRamp, a leading service for onboarding customer data into digital marketing applications, for approximately $310 million in cash.

Acxiom CEO Scott Howe said: "This deal brings together the world's leading marketing data company with the emerging leader in data onboarding to create the industry's most comprehensive network of connections. Together, we will accelerate our vision of a connected ecosystem that delivers true one-to-one marketing at scale. The combination should help virtually everyone in the industry achieve better connections, better insights and better results."

Acxiom said it expects revenue for fiscal 2015 to be down by roughly five percent. The company said the decline in revenue is due to the impact of lost IT Infrastructure Management customers and the exit of analog paper survey business in Europe. Earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $0.75 to $0.85. The company said the decline in earnings per share is primarily driven by lost IT Infrastructure Management customers, and to a lesser extent, dilution from the acquisition of LiveRamp and expenses related to the global expansion of AOS. Analysts expect the company to report fiscal 2015 profit per share of $0.87 on revenue of $1.09 billion.