Shares of Pinellas County's Tech Data sank Tuesday as the company reported lower-than-expected earnings and slumping sales figures.
Tampa Bay's largest public company by revenue notched profits of $41.9 million, inching up a hair from this time last year.
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That's $1.18 in profits per share, below the $1.33 a share analysts had expected, according to Zacks Investment Research.
Wall Street sent Tech Data's stock down sharply Tuesday, closing down at $68.09 a share, a drop of 10 percent.
The tech wholesaler's revenue has taken a hit this year because the strong dollar has given companies that do lots of business overseas unfavorable exchange rates, and the majority of its business is international. Adding to the sales slowdown, the company, which has a Clearwater mailing address but is located in the city of Largo, recently decided to stop doing business in Chile, Peru and Uruguay.
"When we sell products overseas and then we bring the profits back, they're not worth as much when they come back," chief executive Bob Dutkowsky said in an interview.
Meantime, Dutkowsky says technology spending in the U.S. isn't growing as fast this year as it has in the past. And because Tech Data is a middleman in the tech business, not a household name, it can't do as much to gin up excitement about new products. Instead, it has to work with the market it's given.
Those forces combined for a 5 percent dip in revenue this quarter, falling to $6.4 billion. So far this year, sales are down 7 percent.
Still, Dutkowsky said Tech Data's results were better than the headline figures give the company credit for. Take out the impact of the dollar and its pullback from South America, the company says, and revenue this quarter would have instead grown 5 percent.
Overall, the company's bottom line has been showing solid growth this year. Tech Data has recorded $169.6 million in profits so far this year, a jump of 79 percent.
"The reality of it is that the work of our 10,000 people around the world and the customers that we supported actually increased by 5 percent," Dutkowsky said. But 60 percent of its sales come from Europe, more than many other international companies, he said, pushing its figures down. "We look differently than many others, and Wall Street just kinds of just paints us all with the same brush."
Contact Thad Moore at tmoore@tampabay.com. Follow @thadmoore.