By Maria Armental
Riverbed Technology Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit soared on the
sale of its SteelStore product line to NetApp Inc.
The sale of its cloud backup and recovery business added $38.9
million, after tax.
It is the first quarter of results Riverbed reports since San
Francisco private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC and an arm of the
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan agreed to buy Riverbed for about
$3.6 billion, following a takeover bid by hedge-fund manager
Elliott Management Corp.
Riverbed did not offer financial projections and said it would
not hold a conference call with investors to discuss results given
its pending sale.
Founded in 2002, Riverbed pioneered a niche in networking
hardware and completed one of the hottest stock offerings of
2006.
Riverbed sells products to boost the performance of companies'
software applications. It initially focused on a category called
wide-area network optimization, selling boxes that companies place
in their data centers and branch offices to streamline the flow of
data and make software work faster.
For the most recent period, Riverbed reported a profit of $49.7
million, or 31 cents a share, up from $8.4 million, or five cents a
share, a year earlier. Excluding stock-based compensation expenses
and other items, profit rose to 34 cents from 31 cents.
Riverbed had expected 31 cents to 33 cents a share.
Revenue edged up 0.05% to $283.4 million, below the consensus of
$287.6 a share, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson
Reuters.
Shares edged up 0.29% to $20.65 in recent after-hours
trading.
Through Thursday's closing, the company's stock had risen nearly
6% over the past 12 months.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
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