Shares of Costa Mesa’s Resources Connection Inc., an accounting and financial consulting company, jumped on Thursday after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results.
The stock rose nearly 8% Thursday on the earnings.
Profit for the quarter ended May 31 rose 2% from a year earlier to $16.1 million, beating Wall Street’s expected $15.5 million.
Excluding stock option expenses, the company said it earned $20 million in the quarter.
Revenue rose 21% to $200.5 million. Analysts expected revenue of $199 million.
The company is looking to grow sales 20% or more next year, said Chief Operating Officer Tony Cherbak.
It also approved a special cash dividend of $61 million to be paid out in August as well as plans to buy back about $150 million of its shares.
Separately, the company said it agreed to buy Britain’s Compliance Consultants Ltd. for about $8 million in cash and stock.
Resources Connection paid about $5.8 million in cash and $2.4 million in stock for Compliance Consultants, which helps investment advisers, hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms and insurance companies stay in compliance with government and industry regulations.
Resources Connection plans to fold Compliance Consultants into its regulatory consulting practice for Britain and Western Europe, the company said.
After the deal closes, Compliance Consultants is set to move from its offices in Leicester and Manchester into Resources Connection’s London office in August, the company said.
It will operate as a separate division of Resources Connection with its same managers.
Resources Connection is hired by companies to do internal accounting that’s later checked over and signed off by an external auditor, often one of the Big Four accounting firms.
The company, which has a market value of about $1.7 billion, plans to set up other compliance-related practices in the U.S. and Asia, according to Cherbak.
