Cisco (CSCO) is scheduled to report results of its fiscal second quarter after the market close on Wednesday, February 14, with a conference call scheduled for 4:30 pm ET. What to watch for: 1. Q2 CONSENSUS UP A TICK: Along with its last report, Cisco guided for Q2 earnings per share in the range of 58c-60c on revenue growth of 1%-3%. At the time, analysts were expecting the company to report Q2 EPS of 58c on revenue of $11.7B, but those figures have since risen to 59c and $11.81B, respectively. 2. BROADSOFT DEAL UPDATE: On January 18, BroadSoft (BSFT) said that it received notice from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission granting early termination of the waiting period under the U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended, in connection with its pending merger with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cisco. BroadSoft previously agreed to be acquired by Cisco for $55 per share. 3. SPECTRE, MELTDOWN: On January 19, CRN reported that Cisco had added nine more products to its investigation into dozens of systems potentially affected by the Spectre and Meltdown exploits. The company updated the advisory with network application service and acceleration products including the vBond Orchestrator, vEdge 5000, vEdge Cloud, vManage NMS and vSmart Controller and also added the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller, Virtual Application Policy Controller, c800 Series Integrated Services Routers and the C880 M4 Server, according to CRN. 4. CEO HINTS AT M&A: Last week, The Information reported that Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins hinted in a recent meeting with reseller partners that the company would use some of the $68B it holds overseas for mergers and acquisitions now that U.S. tax reform legislation has passed. The company is said to have eyed ServiceNow (NOW) and Red Hat (RHT) as potential takeover targets, according to The Information.
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