Verint shares tumble after sales, earnings miss target

Shares of Verint Systems Inc., a Melville-based software maker, fell in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company reported lower than expected fiscal fourth quarter adjusted net income and revenues.

Verint, founded in 1994, produces programs that sift through data from telephone calls, video streams and other sources to pinpoint security threats, measure productivity and other functions.

The company posted revenue of $280.8 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, a 9 percent decline from the same quarter a year earlier. After adjusting for one-time gains and costs, revenue was $281.8 million.

Six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected revenue of $319.4 million.

Net income for the quarter was $17.5 million, or 28 cents per share, up almost fourfold from a year earlier, when it was $4.6 million or 7 cents a share.

Adjusted earnings came to 90 cents per share. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks was for adjusted earnings of $1.17 per share.

The company released its earnings after the close of regular trading. Verint’s shares, traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, had opened at $34.75 Tuesday but tumbled to as low as $28.37 at 4:35 p.m., before recovering to $31.01 at 6 p.m. in after-hours trading, down 11.9 percent from the 4 p.m. closing price of $35.19. The company’s shares are down about 44 percent in the past 12 months.

The company also announced a program to buy back as much as $150 million of its common stock over the next two years. “We are confident in the long term opportunity for Verint in the actionable intelligence market and are pleased to announce Verint’s first stock buyback program,” Dan Bodner, president and chief executive, said in a statement. — with AP