Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK) has announced an 18% decline in revenue, according to the company’s most recent filing with the SEC.
The company’s share price opened today at $75.45, rising on expectations of today’s report. During after-hours trading the price dipped to $73.74.
Total revenue for the comparative period of Q3 2016 was $600 million, with the full year figure reaching $2.5 billion. Today’s figures show revenue of $490 million for the quarter.
Prior to the earnings release a survey of analyst opinion showed the high band of revenue estimates at $635 million and a low of $617 million.
The earnings announcement comes after news that Swedish company Sandvik, $10 billion by revenue, made public plans that they are in the market to acquire an industrial software company.
Siemens integrate Materialise software
Such partnerships are increasingly common in the 3D printing industry. At Formnext earlier this month Siemens were giving demonstrations of how they plan to integrate Belgium based Materialise software into their existing services.
Yesterday a partnership between Siemens and Materialise in the medical field was announced with news that the Siemens Healthineers divsion, medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, and healthcare information technology, “will use Materialise Mimics technology to help healthcare providers bring 3D printing operations in house.”
Siemens’ vision of the future of 3D printing in their booth at Formnext 2016.
Investors banking on software success
As we reported in October it is not only industry participants that are making investments in the future of 3D printing. Soroban Capital Partners LP, an activist hedge fund with $16 billion in assets, has increased its stake in Autodesk to become one of the largest investors in the California based software company.
Speculative moves like this may indicate that the hedge fund believes that value in Autodesk can be unlocked. Or the move may be part of a strategy similar to the approach taken, unsuccessfully by Elliot Capital Management. In the case of the Paul Singer led fund attempts to command a higher purchase price for shares in SLM Solutions were met with a refusal by GE, who instead turned their attention to Concept Laser.
Commentators have remarked that the attention of a hedge fund may not bode well for one of the parties, as the goals of the separate groups are rarely aligned.
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Featured image shows Project Escher, a software and control technology parallel processing system where numerous independent tools collaborate to fabricate a design. Photo via Autodesk.