MRN Morson Grp

RNS Number:7361N
Merant PLC
27 November 2001


CONTACTS:

MERANT

Gerald Perkel                                 Scott Hildebrandt

Chief Executive Officer                       Chief Financial Officer

+1 (503) 617 2735                             +1 (503) 617 2401


Gerry.Perkel@merant.com                       Scott.Hildebrandt@merant.com

Larry De'Ath                                  Financial Dynamics

VP, Communications / Investor Relations       Harriet Keen / Emma Rutherford

+1 (301) 838 5228                             +44 (0) 20 7831 3113

Larry.Death@merant.com                        merant@fd.com


         MERANT to Delay Final Announcement of Second Quarter Results

              Company Announces Estimated Revenues and Earnings

HILLSBORO, OR and NEWBURY, UK - November 27, 2001 - MERANT (London Stock
Exchange (LSE): MRN; Nasdaq National Market (NNM): MRNT), states that it has
delayed the announcement of its final results for its second quarter ended 31
October 2001, originally scheduled to be announced today. The final
announcement will now be made no later than Wednesday 5 December 2001.

On 8 November 2001 MERANT completed the sale of the DataDirect Division, and
along with the Micro Focus Division disposal completed in August 2001, are
both now treated as discontinued operations in the Company's financial
statements. This has necessitated the restatement of the profit and loss
account, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement and the relevant notes
for all previous fiscal periods. MERANT reports its financial statements in
G.B. pounds under U.K. GAAP, and in U.S. dollars under U.S. GAAP, with the
treatment of these business disposals being different under each basis. It has
not proved possible to complete this restatement and the analysis of the
second fiscal quarter ended 31 October 2001 within MERANT's normal reporting
timetable due to the complex nature of the adjustments required under each of
the reporting bases.

Results From Continuing Operations

For the second fiscal quarter ended 31 October 2001, MERANT expects to report
revenue of #22.3 million ($32.5 million) from continuing operations, compared
with #22.4 million ($31.6 million) for the first fiscal quarter of this year.
Operating losses for continuing operations are estimated to be #2.3 to #2.8
million ($3.4 to $4.1 million) excluding goodwill amortization and one-time
charges for the October 2001 quarter. Interest income was #0.5 million ($0.7
million) for the quarter ended 31 October 2001. Approximately #2.3 million
($3.3 million) of one-time charges primarily related to severance will be
charged to operations.

For the first half of fiscal 2002, the Company expects to report revenue of 
#44.7 million ($64.1 million) from continuing operations, compared with #45.6
million ($68.3 million) for the first half of last year. Operating losses for
the first half of the current fiscal year for continuing operations are
estimated to be #4.3 to #5.0 million ($6.2 to $7.2 million) excluding goodwill
amortization and one-time charges. For the six months ended 31 October 2001,
interest income was #1.0 million ($1.4 million).

Financial Position

During the quarter, MERANT received #37.6 million ($54.5 million) of cash for
the sale of the Micro Focus business and #10.8 million ($15.5 million) upon
completing the sale of the Company's owned real estate in Newbury, U.K. MERANT
is expected to end the quarter with #87.7 million ($126.5 million). Subsequent
to the end of this quarter, MERANT received #18.3 million ($26.1 million) as a
result of the sale of the DataDirect business before transaction cost.

Business Update

The Company continues to make significant progress in the restructuring of its
operations to return to profitability, after disposing of non-strategic
businesses in the first half of the year. In addition to the sale of the Micro
Focus and DataDirect businesses, MERANT has announced the completed sale of
our Newbury real estate, the appointment of a new president and CEO, Gerry
Perkel, the appointment of Scott Hildebrandt as CFO and the planned relocation
of our operational headquarters to Oregon.

While MERANT is pleased to report its progress with respect to the transition
of its business, the Company is operating in a very challenging economic
environment and remains cautious about expectations for the second half of the
fiscal year, as the Company has experienced a slowdown in the volume of sales
transactions over $100,000. Further comment on the actions taken to reduce
costs, the Group's margins and earnings from its continuing and discontinued
operations will be made at the time of the final announcement of the second
quarter results.

The conference call scheduled for today will now not take place. Further
details will be communicated in due course on the rescheduled conference call.

About MERANT

With over 25 years of experience, MERANT helps customers at over 30,000 sites
worldwide, including all of the Fortune 100 and a majority of the Global 2000,
improve their ability to manage change to enterprise digital assets -
applications, code and content.  Delivering the broadest coverage of digital
assets, unsurpassed scalability and end-to-end change management, MERANT PVCS
is the comprehensive enterprise change management platform customers use to
make change a competitive advantage.  For additional information, visit
www.merant.com.

PVCS is a registered trademark, and MERANT is a trademark of MERANT. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.


Forward-Looking Statements

The following statement is made in accordance with the U.S. Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release contains forward-looking
statements that include statements regarding expectations for our financial
results and results of operations for the second fiscal quarter and first half
of the fiscal year, business strategy, and prospects, including the growth of
our enterprise change management business and related revenues.
Forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor created by the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which provides that MERANT can be
exempt from liability for making forward-looking statements if cautionary
language is included with the statements. When used in this release, the words
"anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect", "realize", "likely", "unlikely"
and similar expressions, as they relate to MERANT or its management, are
intended to identify these forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties.
Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated by these
forward-looking statements. Future results will be difficult to predict as
MERANT transforms its business strategy to focus on its enterprise change
management products and services and away from certain of its past primary
markets, including the market for Year 2000 products and services, the market
for application, creation and transformation, or COBOL, mainframe software
products and services, and the market for enterprise data connectivity, or
middleware, software products and services. MERANT's ability to recruit and
retain key personnel, especially in the sales and business units and at the
senior management level, could materially alter financial results and plans
for the sales and business units. Other factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially include, among others, the ability of MERANT to
effectively manage its costs against uncertain revenue expectations, the
potential for a decrease in revenue or a slowdown in revenue growth which may
be caused by delays in the timing of sales and the delivery of products or
services, the ability of MERANT to develop, release, market and sell products
and services to customers in the highly dynamic market for enterprise change
management products, the potential need for enterprise change management
products to shift based on changes in technology and customer needs, the
effect of competitors' efforts to enter MERANT's markets and the possible
success of existing competitors in those markets, MERANT's ability to manage
and integrate recently acquired businesses or other businesses that it may
acquire in the future as well as efficiently dispose of, and manage the
provision or receipt, as the case may be, of certain services related to,
businesses or products which are not a part of MERANT's business strategy,
including MERANT's ability to manage obligations related to the recent sale of
the DataDirect enterprise data connectivity business, and the earlier sale of
the Micro Focus application, creation and transformation division, and
MERANT's ability to manage the move of its operational headquarters and
related functions from Rockville, MD to Hillsboro, OR.

Further information on potential factors which could affect our financial
results and operations are found in filings or submissions on Form 6-K as
periodically submitted to the SEC, and in MERANT's Form 20-F for the year
ended April 30, 2001. MERANT undertakes no obligation to release publicly any
updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained in this
release that may reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of
this release.

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