Greenfield Figures Show Tough Task Ahead

Online panel specialist Greenfield Online has reported 'disappointing' financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2005. New President and CEO Al Angrisani, who was brought in at the end of September to turn the company round, said the company had 'launched an aggressive corrective process'.

Revenue for the quarter was down and expenses up. Angrisani says the company faces 'significant issues' and is acting with 'a renewed sense of urgency and accountability' to restore its previously enviable position, but that 'the situation is not desperate'. Specifically, he said the business suffered from 'declining revenue in North America and flat revenue in Europe as compared to prior quarter. This was compounded by disproportionately higher general and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue, including dramatically increased public company expenses.'

Greenfield spent heavily earlier in the year on purchasing GoZing in the US and Ciao in Europe, and has admitted it has yet to realise the benefits in terms of rationalisation of panels and costs. Revenue for the three months ending September 2005 was $23.1m, up from $12.0m a year previously, and for the nine months up to $64.7m from $30.9m. However, operating income is down to $823,000 from $2.3m a year previously.

'In my first thirty days, we have launched an aggressive corrective process for the business going forward' continued Angrisani. 'Our increased panel spend in October has resulted in the addition of 170,000 new double-opted-in panelists globally. We are seeing improvement in our client satisfaction scores. We went live with our GoQuote Online Ordering tool for survey sample. And we have launched the beta test of our Unified Panel System.'

Angrisani said the company was involved in 'rightsizing ... to bring expenses in line with current revenue levels'. Guidance will not be issued for the duration of this period - instead, Angrisani promised to 'bring you up to date when we report our fourth quarter operating results early next year'.

Greenfield's corporate web site is at www.greenfield.com.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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