CA eyes more JVs to tap Asian telco market
"We are actively forming more joint ventures (particularly) in China, Taiwan and Korea," said CA president and CEO Sanjay Kumar at CA World eBusiness Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida today.
Sanjay declined to reveal additional investments and the potential partners CA is in talks with, but noted that "joint ventures are a better way to work in Asia as local companies understand the local market better". He did not elaborate on the nature of the future deals.
Its current 23 alliances in the region include application service provider (ASP) joint ventures with Korea Telecom Hitel in Korea, Pacific Century CyberWorks in Hong Kong and Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation in Singapore. CA also has a joint venture with China's mobile communications equipment manufacturer Eastern Communications Group for developing billing systems targeted at domestic mobile operators.
Islandia, New York-based CA provides a suite of software which it claims manages corporations' e-business needs. Its offerings fall under four newly rebranded product lines: Unicenter (for enterprise management), Jasmine (for information management), eTrust (for security management) and BrightStor (for storage management).
As part of the corporate rebranding, CA launched a US$100 million, 12-month advertising campaign and unveiled a new company logo in January to reflect its new focus on e-business.
For the year ended March 2001, CA's turnover decreased 31 percent to US$4.2 billion, from US$6.1 billion last year. According to the company, its sales was affected by a new subcription model introduced last October, whereby license fees are "recognized over the contract term" and not registered upfront.
The company also incurred a loss of US$591 million compared with a profit of US$696 million last year.
Sales from the US made up US$2.73 billion, or 65 percent of total revenues. Sales from outside the US was US$1.47 billion (or 35 percent of total revenues), a 29 percent decline from US$2.07 billion last year. The company does not provide revenue breakdown by region.
Last month, Texas tycoon Sam Wyly had reportedly waged a war to gain control of CA as chairman and oust its existing board, whom he claimed let the company's share price languish. Wyly also accused CA chairman Charles Wang and CEO Sanjay Kumar of creating a corporate culture that has mistreated employees and customers, Reuters said.
Wyly's family-owned Dallas-based investment group, Ranger Governance, owns about two million shares or less than 1 percent of CA, according to Reuters.