Shares of Aliso Viejo-based Quest Software Inc., which fell sharply in the spring on concerns about stock options, closed higher Monday on an analyst’s upgrade.
A PiperJaffray analyst upgraded the software maker to “outperform” from “market perform,” saying Quest is stable to improving and that an options probe and pending financial restatement don’t appear to be impacting its business.
Quest makes software to monitor the performance of databases and other programs.
In June, the company said the Securities and Exchange Commission was doing an informal probe of the timing of its option grants.
A month later, Quest said it plans to restate results from 2000 through the first quarter of this year to account for option grants.
Then in August, the company delivered disappointing partial quarterly results and received a delisting threat from Nasdaq.
Quest’s shares closed up 2% Monday on the upgrade with a market value of about $1.5 billion. The company could benefit as companies upgrade to new software from Microsoft Corp. starting next year, PiperJaffray said.
