CA: Q4 strong, company surge continues

CA Technologies reported a strong fourth quarter that was better than expected.

The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $211 million, or 45 cents a share, on revenue of $1.188 billion, up 5 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 56 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 52 cents a share on revenue of $1.187 billion.

For CA, it was the second consecutive strong quarter for the company. The results are in contrast to the financial results from rival BMC, which reported lighter-than-expected fourth quarter earnings. CA reported fiscal 2012 earnings of $938 million, or $1.90 a share, on revenue of $4.81 billion, up 9 percent from a year ago.

Related: CA Technologies' strategy: Can it tackle organic growth?

As for the outlook, CA projected fiscal 2013 non-GAAP earnings of $2.45 a share to $2.53 a share on revenue between $4.85 billion to $4.95 billion. Wall Street is looking for earnings of $2.49 a share on revenue of $5 billion.

Bill McCracken, CEO of CA, said the results show that the company can hit its targets. McCracken said that CA will focus on expanding its footprint in large enterprise and winning new accounts in growth markets.

By the numbers:

• 63 percent of CA's revenue was from North America. Sales were strong in virtualization, service automation, security and mainframe software. Mainframe capacity and service assurance sales were weaker than expected.
• CA's backlog was $8.47 billion at the end of the quarter, down 2 percent from a year ago.
• Bookings for the fourth quarter were $1.54 billion, down 18 percent from a year ago.
• CA renewed 27 license agreements.
• Mainframe revenue in the fourth quarter was $629 million, up 2 percent, with operating profit of $350 million.
• Enterprise revenue in the fourth quarter was $466 million, up 10 percent, with operating profit of $21 million.
• Services revenue was $93 million, up 13 percent from the fourth quarter a year ago. Operating profit was $6 million.