Sage News and Discussion

Sage reports earnings - I'm still waiting to see if they have more detail about their regions. Usually there's a narrative to describe the various growth rates. So far as I can see the reaction is mostly positive because there have not been high expectations. I think the ""Statutory"" earnings are similar to GAAP and the ""Underlying"" are the Statutory with certain items backed out (at one time I think they took away all their maintenance mode products but I don't know if they still do that). Sage have been buying back shares like crazy. I think this helps them on their EPS (fewer shares = higher EPS?) http://www.sage.com/~/media/group/files/investors/Results/2013/Sage_FY13_pressrelease.pdf

Product wise this is mostly a Sage One and ERP X3 game. The Sage One offering lets Sage pull in the ""pure SaaS"" buzzwords. The ERP X3 lets Sage show big year over year growth rates. The other products are not mentioned except in passing. Nothing on CRM which is very strange for a company that seemed to be VERY gung ho on the power of CRM a year or two ago.

Full year presentation slide deck - http://www.sage.com/~/media/group/files/investors/Results/2013/Prelims_2013_Presentation.pdf

I think the reality is CRM is a very small part of overall revenues and they know they are a non-player for CRM outside of the Sage install base. They once had king of the hill with Saleslogix and like all Sage products to date, failed to invest more than 1% of maintenance revenues back into the product to keep it relevant and MSCRM/SFDC ate its lunch. Overall, like reading the financial presentations of any given hedge fund or wall street company. Not very exciting if you actually care about software & innovation. Just how to most efficiently milk the cow

I agree- when I read this I was thinking that it read like a ""widows and orphans"" type investment. Steady consistent return on investment without much risk. In reality Sage knows for the short term they have many customers locked in. There's probably not a lot of risk that the majority will flee and I see nothing on the horizon save for attrition that risks the Sage annuity. Worth noting that Sage has almost complete control (aka no competition) over how much they raise rates and my personal opinion is they will raise rates until they hit their promised 6% growth.