Vasco Data Security gains 32% despite plummeting fintech index

After the previous week's small rise proved to be a dead cat bounce, the Finextra50 Financial Technology Index followed markets worldwide further downwards last week, with only three companies bucking the trend to post significant gains - Vasco Data Security, Computershare and Pegasystems. The index closed down 12.3% to 48.75.

Vasco Data Security was the week's biggest gainer, finishing Friday up 32.13% to $9.17 after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. The vendor of hardware and software for security systems added 365 new customers during the period, of which 62 were banks.

"Even though the banking industry is going through a period of major change, our products continue to be very well positioned to help banks reduce their costs," Chief Executive Officer Kendall Hunt said.

Third-quarter earnings were of $9.1 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with $5.9 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago.

The other companies to see solid gains last week were Computershare, which ended the week up 11.84% to A$8.50, and Pegasystems, which rose 6.46% to $11.53 after the business process management (BPM) software vendor announced that it expects revenue for the 2008 third quarter to exceed its previous quarterly record of $51.1 million.

Losers

Six companies fell more than 20% last week. Australian wealth management software vendor Bravura Solutions led the fallers, dropping 32.69% to A$0.35 after private equity firm Ironbridge Capital pulled out of its proposed $272 million buyout, six months after it struck an agreement to buy the company for A$1.73 per share. The deal had been held up by questions about ownership of key shares nominally controlled by the joint CEOs but subject to a dispute relating to a margin facility at failed domestic broker Lift Capital. That dispute was resolved earlier this month.

It is believed the collapse of the Ironbridge deal relates to Bravura’s inability to meet one of the key conditions of the bid, an Ebitda of $23.5 million for fiscal 2008, as well as the general instability in global markets.

India's Nucleus Software dropped 21.52% to Rs62 after announcing a sharp drop in standalone net profit for the quarter ended September 2008. During the quarter, profit declined 48.61% to Rs 72.36 million from Rs 140.81 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Other companies to see significant falls, even against the market backdrop that saw major index's worldwide fall by around 10%, include: