Software AG shares crash on warning

NEWS Shares in enterprise software firm Software AG plunged this morning after the company warned that first quarter revenues would be significantly down from the same period last year. The German company opened 20 per cent lower at E14.50 (£8.87) after an overnight warning on first quarter revenues. First quarter revenues are now expected to hit E116m (£71m) instead of previous expectations of between E124m (£75.9m) and E128m (£78.3m). The company said that results for the quarter would be 10 per cent lower than the first quarter 2001 because licensing revenues had fallen from E42.6m (£26m) for the quarter in 2001 to between E24m (£14.7m) to E25m (£15.3m) in 2002. In a statement the company said: "Revenue is below expectations due to the customers' great reluctance to invest in IT, which at Software AG led to an unprecedented strong postponement of projects of all size." The company will publish its final results for the quarter on 24 April.