On March 29, open platform expert Red Hat
- Red Hat missed its own revenue forecast by less than $1 million, but hit the top end of its non-GAAP earnings guidance, and beat management's GAAP earnings estimate by a penny per share.
- 41% revenue growth doesn't exactly make it look like Oracle
(NASDAQ:ORCL) and Novell(NASDAQ:NOVL) stole a lot of prospective Red Hat customers this quarter, despite all of its thud and blunder over the last few months. - In fiscal 2006, Red Hat added 160 net new employees. The company started fiscal 2007 with a global staff of 1,100. We don't know how many came on board during the year, but management expects to hire about 100 people per quarter this year. That's a pretty significant hiring rate for such a modest operation.
(Figures in millions, except per-share data)
Income Statement Highlights
|
Q4 2007 |
Q4 2006 |
Change |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Sales |
$111.1 |
$78.7 |
41.2% |
|
Net Profit |
$20.5 |
$27.3 |
(25.0%) |
|
EPS |
$0.09 |
$0.13 |
(30.8%) |
|
Diluted Shares |
220.6 |
213.5 |
3.3% |
Get back to basics with the income statement.
Margin Checkup
|
Q4 2007 |
Q4 2006 |
Change* |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Gross Margin |
84.3% |
84.2% |
0.1 |
|
Operating Margin |
15.0% |
25.1% |
(10.1) |
|
Net Margin |
18.4% |
34.7% |
(16.3) |
Margins are the earnings engine.
Balance Sheet Highlights
|
Assets |
Q4 2007 |
Q4 2006 |
Change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Cash + ST Invest. |
$878.1 |
$804.9 |
9.1% |
|
Accounts Rec. |
$88.0 |
$59.8 |
47.1% |
|
Liabilities |
Q4 2007 |
Q4 2006 |
Change |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Accounts Payable |
$12.1 |
$5.6 |
114.4% |
|
Long-Term Debt |
$570.0 |
$570.0 |
0.0% |
The balance sheet reflects the company's health.
Cash Flow Highlights
|
Q4 2007 |
Q4 2006 |
Change |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Cash From Ops. |
$45.6 |
$50.1 |
(8.9%) |
|
Capital Expenditures |
$7.9 |
$4.4 |
80.5% |
|
Free Cash Flow |
$37.7 |
$45.7 |
(17.4%) |
|
$18.8 |
$26.9 |
(30.4%) |
Free cash flow is a Fool's best friend.
Related Foolishness:
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At the time of publication, Anders Bylund had no position in any company mentioned. Fool rules are here.
