COMPUSERVE AT A LOSS AFTER 1ST PUBLIC QUARTER.Byline: Steve Lohr The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Compuserve Corp. said Tuesday that it would report a loss in its first complete quarter as a public company, surprising Wall Street and driving the company's share price down nearly 20 percent. Compuserve, the second-largest commercial on-line service, said the disappointing results came largely because its subscriber membership had all but stopped growing in the past two months. The unexpected slowdown For articles with similar titles, see Slow Down (disambiguation). A slowdown is an industrial action in which employees perform their duties but seek to reduce productivity or efficiency in their performance of these duties. at Compuserve comes only a month after the largest on-line service, America Online See AOL. Inc., conceded con·cede v. con·ced·ed, con·ced·ing, con·cedes v.tr. 1. To acknowledge, often reluctantly, as being true, just, or proper; admit. See Synonyms at acknowledge. 2. that it expects its once-torrid growth to ease during the summer. The pair of announcements have raised concerns about the outlook for the two major commercial on-line services. They are finding it more difficult and more costly to sign subscribers and are facing growing competition from the Internet. ``We're clearly seeing a slowing of the fast growth of the past,'' said Adam Schoenfeld Adam Schoenfeld is an American professional poker player and former columnist for Card Player magazine. Schoenfeld decided to quit his job as the vice president of an Internet analysis firm in order to play poker full-time. , an analyst at Jupiter Communications in New York. ``The on-line services are not dead yet, but it is going to be a very painful transition for them.'' A 20 percent stake in Compuserve, long a division of H&R Block Inc., was sold in an initial public offering in April. H&R Block said Tuesday that, as expected, it would spin off the remaining 80.1 percent of Compuserve shares to Block shareholders. The company also said that to adjust for the impact on income from the Compuserve spinoff Spinoff A new, independent company created through selling or distributing new shares for an existing part of another company. Notes: Spinoffs may be done through a rights offering. , Block would cut its quarterly dividend to 20 cents a share, from 32 cents a share. In its earnings forecast Tuesday, Compuserve said it expected that, for the quarter ending July 31, it would report a loss from operations ranging from $13.5 million to $18 million, or 15 cents to 20 cents a share. Analysts had estimated that the company would report a quarterly profit of about $4.5 million, or 5 cents a share. |
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