Adobe Systems Inc shares jumped for joy at the company’s fiscal first quarter figures, adding over $4 to hit $39 as the San Jose company coupled the figures with news that it will pay investors a dividend from time to time based on the profit that it makes from selling stakes it owns in other public companies in which it has invested on its own account, via the venture capital fund it runs with with the help of Hambrecht & Quist LLC, and acquisitions made by firms it bought. The fund has already had the odd success, such as Netscape Communications Corp and PointCast Inc… To date, the company has received $72.6m in cash from its venture capital business – already substantially more than the $60m or so that it has invested, and will distribute some of the money to its investors through periodic dividends, the first of which will be paid within the next few months, it said. Profit from operations in the quarter were $0.61 a share where analysts had looked for $0.42 a share. Revenue generated by applications, aided by the release of the new version of its flagship PageMaker product, rose to $175m from $146.7m. Licensing revenue increased nearly 10% to $51.5m. Adobe’s overall sales for the quarter rose 17% to $226.5m.
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