Topic: How To Invest

Spinoffs, Takeovers & Special Situations Hotline – Friday, March 23, 2018

Article Excerpt

CONDUENT INC., $19.07, symbol CNDT on New York, is a stock we first recommended in the January 2018 issue of Spinoffs, Takeovers & Special Situations at $16 a share. It’s now up 19.2% on strong earnings. Conduent provides business-process outsourcing services, commonly referred to as BPO, to transaction-intensive companies. Xerox spun off the company on January 3, 2017. The shares have jumped since February, when the company reported stronger profits in the latest quarter. For the three months ended December 31, 2017, Conduent made $67.0 million, or $0.31 a share. That’s up 9.8% from $61.0 million, or $0.29 a share, a year earlier. The gain also beats the consensus forecast for just $0.24 a share. The company continues to focus on its core business and to aggressively lower its costs. For example, it had roughly 90,000 employees as of December 31, 2017, compared to 96,000 a year earlier. Revenue in the quarter was $1.49 billion, down 1.4% from $1.51 billion. The company’s balance sheet remains…