Topic: Growth Stocks

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $35 – Nasdaq symbol ADBE

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $35 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 524.1 million; Market cap: $18.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 6.0; No dividends paid since June 2005; WSSF Rating: Average) makes Abode Acrobat, which lets users easily create, edit and share electronic documents in the popular PDF format. As well, graphic designers use Adobe’s Creative Suite of programs to create web pages and print publications. The company also makes Adobe Flash. This program lets web sites display graphics and animation.

In October 2009, Adobe completed its $1.8-billion purchase of Omniture Inc., which makes software that measures and analyzes web-site traffic. Adobe will sell this software to its customers, who can use the information it provides to improve their web pages and increase their online ad revenues. Omniture will add around $335 million a year to Adobe’s revenue.

Adobe earned $814.7 million, or $1.54 a share, in the year ended November 27, 2009. That’s down 28.3% from $1.1 billion, or $2.07 a share, in the prior year. These figures exclude several unusual items, including costs related to the Omniture purchase. Revenue fell 17.7%, to $2.9 billion from $3.6 billion.

The weak economy continues to hold back advertising revenue at newspapers and magazines, many of which are Adobe’s main clients. As a result, they have less to spend on new software. That was the main reason for the lower revenue and earnings.

Adding Omniture will help lift Adobe’s fiscal 2010 earnings to $1.25 a share. The stock trades at 28.0 times that estimate. That’s still reasonable in light of Adobe’s high research spending (19% of revenue). However, big acquisitions like Omniture often come with hidden risks.

Adobe is a hold.

Comments are closed.