INTU Intuit Inc

By Robert Barba 

Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks, said Thursday that Brad Smith will step down as chief executive later this year with the head of its small-business division set to succeed him.

The company announced Sasan Goodarzi, who is currently general manager of Intuit's small-business and self-employed group, is set to become CEO on Jan. 1. Mr. Smith, who also serves as chairman, will take on the executive chairman role. Mr. Goodarzi, who has been with the company since 2004, will also join the board in January.

Much of Intuit's recent growth has come from the business line Mr. Goodarzi oversees, which includes the QuickBooks brand, a platform used by small businesses and accountants to manage finances.

In prepared remarks, Suzanne Nora Johnson, lead independent director for Intuit, credited Mr. Smith with transforming the company from a North America desktop-software company to a "global cloud-driven product and platform company." During his 11-year tenure at the helm, Intuit doubled its customer base to 50 million customers, doubled its revenue and tripled its earnings per share.

On Thursday, the company also reported revenue grew 17% in its most recent quarter to $988 million, helped by a 20% rise in the small-business division's revenue. During the year ended July 31, QuickBooks Online's subscriber base grew 38% to 2.6 million, while non-U.S. subscribers grew 62% to 800,000.

Intuit roughly doubled its fiscal fourth-quarter profit to $49 million, or 18 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, Intuit earned 32 cents a share, beating the 23 cents a share analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

The company said it expects to report adjusted earnings between 9 cents a share and 11 cents a share and revenue of $955 million to $975 million in its first quarter. For fiscal 2019, it anticipates adjusted earnings of $6.40 a share to $6.50 a share with revenue between $6.5 billion and $6.6 billion.

Intuit also announced that Tayloe Stansbury is expected to step down from his role as chief technology officer on Jan. 1. Marianna Tessel, chief product development officer for the company's small-business and self-employed group will succeed him.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 23, 2018 17:28 ET (21:28 GMT)

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