What happened
Wednesday was shaping up to be a Hump Day to forget for Conduent (CNDT 1.32%), the business-processing outsource specialist. The company's shares were down by more than 10% by midafternoon, as the S&P 500 was posting a gain of nearly 2%. Investors were basically punishing Conduent for what they considered to be a lackluster second quarter.
So what
The results of that quarter, which were published just after market hours on Tuesday, showed that revenue fell by nearly 10% year over year to $928 million. On the bottom line, Conduent reached breakeven for the period, in contrast to the $12 million it earned in the same quarter of 2021. On an adjusted basis, the company posted a $0.03-per-share profit, well down from the year-ago $0.20.
This represented a double miss. On average, analysts following Conduent were expecting it to post $930 million in revenue, and $0.05 in adjusted per-share net profit.
The company said that the quarter essentially landed within its expectations, as the same period in 2021 was boosted by the volume of stimulus payments in its government services business. Conduent also said an unfavorable dollar exchange rate with the euro and the U.K. pound affected results.
Now what
For full-year 2022, Conduent expects $3.85 billion to $3.95 billion in adjusted revenue, with the margin for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) coming in at 10% to 10.5%. Those figures for 2021 were, respectively, $4.07 billion and 11%.
The company did not proffer any net profit forecasts.
