Informix Says It May Need to Restate Profit

Informix Corp. said it may have to restate its earnings to show drastically poorer results for the last two years, sparking a sell-off of the database software company’s stock. The company, based in Menlo Park, also said Nasdaq has begun a proceeding to remove its stock from the market because the company is late in filing mandatory financial documents. Informix plans a meeting with Nasdaq officials to ask for an extension while it does its audit. Informix shares fell as low as $6.50 before ending down $1.94 to close at $7.50 on Nasdaq, where it was the most active issue on volume of 14.5 million shares. Informix said it might have to take back more than $250 million in sales for the last two years, double what it had previously estimated, because of accounting errors. As a result, Informix could lower 1996 revenue by $200 million and 1995 revenue by $50 million, the company said. The company had previously reported revenue of $939.3 million for 1996 and $708.9 million for 1995. Informix publishes database software, the computer programs big companies use to store and retrieve huge amounts of business information in computer networks.