Shares of Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp., a maker of electronics for data storage networks, slumped Thursday after the company reported results for the March quarter that missed Wall Street’s expectations.
Investors sent shares down more than 3% in afterhours trading on a recent market value of $1.7 billion.
For the three months through March, QLogic reported sales of $131 million, down 18% from a year earlier and short of analysts’ expectation of $135 million in revenue.
Excluding charges for stock compensation, write-downs on assets and other costs, the company posted $25 million in profits, down 34% and just shy of analysts’ expected $26 million in profits.
The company didn’t give an outlook for the current quarter.
In a separate announcement late Thursday, QLogic said it agreed to buy Cupertino-based NetXen Inc. for $21 million in cash.
The deal gets QLogic some “complementary networking products and intellectual property,” the company said.
NetXen, which started in 2002, was backed by venture capital firms Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital and Integral Capital Partners.
It makes network adapter cards for an up-and-coming technology, called fibre channel over Ethernet that promises to merge data storage networks with the everyday networks of corporations.
QLogic had a bit of a wild ride in the past week.
On Wednesday, its shares rose 9% on speculation that it could be a takeover target by EMC Corp.
The rumor turned out to be unfounded and many on Wall Street shot it down.
The company has been subject to scrutiny in the past week after Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. made public a $764 million hostile bid for its top rival, Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp.
QLogic’s shares are up roughly 15% since Broadcom announced its intentions last week.
