Logica Drops Most in Three Months on Lowered Full-Year Forecast

Logica Plc (LOG), an Anglo-Dutch computer services provider, fell the most in three months after it posted third-quarter sales which were lower than analysts’ estimates and revised its full-year earnings forecast downwards.

Logica declined as much as 9.3 percent, before trading 8.8 percent, or 7.9 pence, lower than yesterday’s close of 89.5 pence. as of 9:56 a.m. in London. It is the worst performing stock in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index today.

Third-quarter sales rose 2 percent to 914 million pounds ($1.46 billion), the company said in a PRNewswire statement today. That missed the 929.4 million-pounds average of five analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Full-year revenue growth will exceed 3 percent, the statement said. In August, the company said full-year revenue will increase at a “similar level” to first-half sales, which grew at 5 percent on a proforma basis.

Slowdown in third-quarter earnings is “worse than we expected,” Paul Morland, a London-based analyst at Peel Hunt wrote in an e-mailed note to clients today.

Logica said its full-year margin will be 6.5 percent to 7 percent, as “pockets of softness” became “apparent in September”.

To contact the reporter on this story: Namitha Jagadeesh at njagadeesh@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Colin Keatinge at ckeatinge@bloomberg.net