Citrix reports solid Q4 as new CEO takes over

Citrix, which just named a new CEO, reported a better-than-expected fourth quarter as sales were up 6 percent from a year ago.

The company reported fourth quarter earnings of $131 million, or 84 cents a share, on revenue of $905 million, up 6 percent from a year ago. The net income figure includes separation costs to spin off GoTo, restructuring charges and a tax benefit of 16 cents a share. Non-GAAP earnings for the fourth quarter were $1.66 cents a share. Excluding the tax gain, Citrix's fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings were $1.50 a share.

Wall Street was looking for non-GAAP fourth quarter earnings of $1.19 a share on revenue of $877.5 million.

Citrix nabs former Microsoft business division chief as CEO, president | Citrix sells CloudPlatform, CloudPortal products to Accelerite | Citrix to spin off GoTo, focus on enterprise, cut 1,000 jobs

Add it up and Citrix has revamped to deliver record annual cash flow of $1.03 billion as former Microsoft executive Kirill Tatarinov takes over as CEO.

Citrix's fourth quarter saw software as a service revenue jump 15 percent with smaller gains for product, license and maintenance sales. Revenue in the Americas gained 11 percent, was flat for EMEA and fell 13 percent for Asia Pacific.

For 2015, Citrix reported earnings of $319 million, or $1.99 a share, on revenue of $3.28 billion.

As for the outlook, Citrix projected first quarter revenue of $785 million to $790 million with non-GAAP earnings of 91 cents a share to 93 cents a share. For 2016, Citrix is projecting revenue of $3.31 billion to $3.32 billion with non-GAAP earnings of $4.65 a share to $4.75 a share.

That outlook was better than Wall Street projected.