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Intershop falls on warning
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January 2, 2001: 6:40 a.m. ET
German software maker the latest earnings casualty as sales stall
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LONDON (CNNfn) - German software maker Intershop AG said Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit and sales won't meet previous targets, the warning sending the company's shares diving as much as 65 percent.
The Hamburg-based maker of e-commerce software, citing delays in information technology purchases by its customers, lowered its revenue estimate for year 2000 to a range of  121 million to 123 million ($114 million to $116 million), down from the forecast of 133 million to 143 million forecast in November.
Shares of Intershop (AISH) tumbled 60 percent to 13.35 on the Neuer Markt Tuesday morning, after earlier falling as low as 11.70. The company's American depositary shares (ISHP: Research, Estimates) closed at $15.12, up 12 cents, on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday. 
The stock traded as high as 140.35 last year.
The software maker was the latest casualty in the recent storm of warnings across the technology sector. U.S. industry leaders such as chipmaker Intel Corp. (INTC: Research, Estimates), software company Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: Research, Estimates) and PC vendor Dell Computer Corp. (DELL: Research, Estimates) have all lowered their earnings forecasts.
"We are disappointed with the results for the fourth quarter of 2000," Intershop's Chief Financial Officer Wilfried Beeck said in a statement. "Several multi-million dollar sales opportunities that we expected to close in late 2000 have been postponed until 2001, especially in the U.S. where we continue to ramp up our sales capabilities."
"While we've seen continuous growth in Europe, especially in Germany and the U.K., revenues in the U.S. and Asia suffered significantly from a market-wide softening in technology spending," Beeck added.
Intershop plans to release complete financial results for the fourth quarter and the full year 2000 by Jan. 31.
Intershop said it expects to post a net loss for fiscal 2000 of between 37 million to 39 million, or a loss per share of 0.44 to 0.47. For the fourth quarter alone, Intershop expects a fourth-quarter net loss of about 30 million to 32 million, or 0.36 to 0.38 per share.
-- from staff and wire reports 
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Intershop
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