FactSet Research Systems Inc. expects the trip-hammer blows suffered by a quartet of financial companies to cost it $10 million in subscription revenue in the current quarter, providing an early peek at the repercussions for Fairfield County companies that provide products and services on Wall Street.
The Norwalk-based company provides financial information for investment brokers, including feeds on securities and analysis on financial fundamentals.
Fairfield County is home to a significant cluster of such companies, including the titan Thomson Reuters Corp. in Stamford and relatively small companies like Edgar Online Inc., a Norwalk-based company that publishes corporate filings companies make to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In mid-September, Thomson Reuters froze hiring in its financial markets businesses, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
By contrast, FactSet added 110 employees in the fourth quarter to boost its headcount 6 percent to 1,965 people in total. The company typically makes significant headcount gains in its fourth fiscal quarter, due to an emphasis on hiring collegiate graduates and training them to fill its needs. Last month, FactSet was included on a BusinessWeek list of the best companies for graduates to start their careers.
FactSet had a $34 million profit in the fourth quarter on sales of $154 million, up 19 percent thanks in part to FactSet”™s July acquisition of a copy of the Thomson Fundamentals database from Thomson Reuters.
It marked FactSet”™s 50th straight quarter that is has increased revenue and average every on a sequential basis. The company added 40 corporate clients during the quarter, giving it 2,085 in all; an additional 500 people began using its systems, pushing the total number to more than 40,000.
In a September conference call with investors, FactSet executives repeated the mantra of many high-tech companies in economic downturns ”“ because its products are meant to help clients generate revenue and cut costs, the company is better positioned than many to weather the downturn. That does not always play out in a world where chief financial officers are charged with cutting immediately outflows, including annuity-style subscription fees paid to companies like FactSet and Thomson Reuters.
“During a similar time, post-9/11, we lost 3,000 cell-site users resulting in a decline of users of 22 percent,” said Peter Walsh, chief financial officer of FactSet. “While the overall franchise value of large investment banks has declined significantly, our user count signals that the business groups at FactSet services is not where the problems lie for our sell-side clients ”¦ Our services are focused on (mergers and acquisitions) bankers and equity research professionals, both long-time, low-risk activities that we expect will continue far into the future.”
The company will have its work cut out to keep its growth streak intact. By FactSet”™s own measure, one in five of planned leveraged buyouts has been yanked off the table, putting pressure on M&A firms.
For its fiscal first quarter ending November 30, FactSet expects revenue between $154 million and $157 million, $10 million less than previous expectations due to expected declines in business from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., American International Group Inc. and Washington Mutual.
The company is accustomed to ebbs and flows on Wall Street ”“ the return of summer interns to college alone will erase $1.4 million in non-subscription revenue from workstations no longer in use.
FactSet is fresh off spending nearly $10 million to expand office space and purchase four new Hewlett-Packard Inc. mainframe computers for its Norwalk data center and facilities in two other cities. The company said the purchases are already saving money in ongoing computer maintenance costs.
