What: Shares of DigitalGlobe (DGI) fell as much as 37.6% early Friday, and partially recovered to trade down 25% as of 10:40 a.m. ET, after the satellite imagery and geospatial content provider reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter results and reduced guidance for the year.
So what: Quarterly revenue increased 12.1% year over year to $173.3 million, including a 26.4% increase in U.S. Government revenue to $111 million, and a 6.7% decline in Diversified Commercial revenue to $62.3 million. For the latter, DigitalGlobe blamed a decrease in sales from location-based services clients.
Meanwhile, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 48.6% to $91.4 million. Net income available to common shareholders came in at $8.2 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, compared to roughly breakeven results on a per-share basis in the same year-ago period. Analysts, on average, were anticipating higher revenue of $180.3 million, but lower earnings of $0.11 per share.
Keep in mind those results were bolstered in part by DigitalGlobe's decision to repurchase 1,491,098 shares of common stock for $36.7 million, or an average price of $24.62 per share. DigitalGlobe's board also approved an increase to its share repurchase program by an additional $130 million.
Relatedly, operating cash flow climbed 80.6% to $85.6 million, and free cash flow was $51.5 million.
Now what: But arguably most troubling is DigitalGlobe's reduced 2015 outlook. As it stands, DigitalGlobe now expects 2015 revenue of $685 million to $700 million (down from a prior range of $725 million to $750 million), and adjusted EBITDA of $330 million to $345 million (down from the previous range of $355 million to $375 million).
During the subsequent conference call, Tarr elaborated that the bottom end of the revenue guidance range is comprised of actual booked revenue to date, and backlog expected to be delivered by the end of the year. The upper end is based on closing and delivering a "reasonable amount of current pipeline for the remainder of the quarter."
"While we have lowered our guidance," added Tarr, "we are confident in our ability to continue to drive margin expansion and strong free cash flows. We are also firmly committed to returning capital to shareowners, as evidenced by our board's decision, announced today, to increase our share repurchase authorization from $205 million to $335 million."
Nonetheless, whether that merits today's massive drop is debatable, but investors are understandably upset with this downward revision.
