ECollege chalking up top honors in EPS growth

By Roger Fillion,
Rocky Mountain News
April 16, 2005

Five years ago, eCollege.com was on life support, its stock in the tank and its cash reserves burning up at an alarming rate. The Denver online education company was given a life expectancy of about a year.
Times have changed.

For 2004, eCollege took top honors in the percentage growth in earnings- per-share category of The Colorado 50 for posting a whopping gain of 2,833 percent in its diluted net income per share. Profits skyrocketed to 88 cents per diluted share for all of 2004, from 3 cents in 2003.
Yes, there were special factors: An $18.5 million tax benefit recorded in the fourth quarter added about 84 cents a share to the company's 2004 per-share diluted net earnings.

Also, eCollege's September 2003 purchase of Datamark Inc. skewed the year-vs.-year comparison of diluted net earnings. Datamark made a hefty contribution to eCollege's 2004 results.
But the online education company's 2003 diluted net earnings included Datamark's numbers only for November and December, making the year- vs.-year earnings increase appear larger.
ECollege CEO Oakleigh Thorne joked to a reporter that he was "sorry" the company hadn't generated "real growth" in its diluted net earnings of nearly 3,000 percent.
No matter. Wall Street still likes eCollege.
Why? Analyst Mark Marostica of Piper Jaffray & Co. noted that online education is posting strong growth and universities increasingly recruit students through marketing.

Full Story: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3704616,00.html