(By Balaseshan) Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), a provider of open source software solutions, reported a 8.9% decrease in quarterly earnings due to higher costs and expenses. Revenue beat consensus, while earnings matched Street's expectations.
Earnings for the third quarter were $34.8 million or $0.18 per share, down from $38.2 million or $0.19 per share last year. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) rose to $0.29 from $0.28.
Revenue increased 18% to $343.6 million. On a constant currency basis, total revenue grew 21%.
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a profit of $0.29 per share on revenue of $337.97 million for the third quarter.
Revenue from subscriptions grew 19% to $294.2 million.
Adjusted gross margin improved to 86% from 85%. Adjusted operating margin shrank to 24.0% from 27.2%.
"In Q3, we used our strong balance sheet and cash flow to repurchase about $52 million of common stock, in addition to closing the FuseSource acquisition which enhances our offering in the fast-growing Application Integration software space," said Finance chief Charlie Peters.
In a separate release, Red Hat said it has agreed to buy privately-held ManageIQ, a provider of enterprise cloud management and automation solutions, for about $104 million in cash. With the addition of ManageIQ technologies to its portfolio, Red Hat will expand the reach of its hybrid cloud management solutions for enterprises.
The acquisition is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat's revenue for its fiscal year ending Feb. 28, 2013. Management expects that adjusted operating expenses will rise by about $2 million per quarter as a result of the transaction, and stock-based compensation and amortization expense will increase by about $2 million per quarter.
RHT closed Thursday's regular session up 0.79% at $52.61. The stock has been trading between $39.19 and $62.75 for the past 52 weeks.