Why doesn't somebody tell me these things? Trickle somehow thought PBSC was reporting today. They reported a week ago, echoing the caution other lab equipment/instrument suppliers have made. Busy today, I will provide some more color tomorrow.
>>MERIDEN, Conn., May 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Packard BioScience Company (Nasdaq: PBSC - news) reported today its operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2001, as compared to the quarter ended March 31, 2000.
Unless otherwise stated, references throughout this release are adjusted to include revenues from the GSI Life Sciences acquisition and to remove the effects of charges related to the Company's initial public offering, discontinued operations, and the effects of fluctuations in foreign currencies on the Company's revenues.
Highlights of the Company for the first quarter include:
* The Company's organic revenue grew 19% to $51.5 million; removing the
effects of exchange rates, revenues would have risen almost 23%;
* Operating profit, exclusive of goodwill amortization, grew 30% to
$6.9 million;
* Diluted cash earnings per share from continuing operations increased to
$.03 from a loss of $.01 in the first quarter of 2000; and
* The sale of Canberra generated net proceeds of approximately
$130 million and an after-tax gain of approximately $47 million. As of
the end of the first quarter, the Company had $91 million of cash and
under $30 million of net debt.
Newer products led Packard's first-quarter revenue growth of $9.2 million. Liquid handling and automated sample preparation instrument revenues grew over 45% primarily due to strong MultiPROBE II sales. Packard's newly acquired microarray scanning group grew over 40% in the first quarter due primarily to shipping the large China order received late last year. Partially offsetting these high-growth areas were the Company's legacy products, which declined 11%, slightly better than last year's rate of decline; and service revenue, which declined 6% from the first quarter of 2000, as the prior year quarter was the final period that benefited from Y2K upgrades.
Gross margins remained relatively constant at slightly over 56%, while operating expenses increased reflecting higher spending in research and development and additional goodwill due to the GSI Life Sciences acquisition. Fully-diluted cash EPS of $.03 in the first quarter was tempered by higher-than-expected interest expense due to the delay in the sale of Canberra which was anticipated to close earlier in the quarter.
``Overall, I am extremely pleased with our first quarter results. We have completed the sale of Canberra and have finalized our transition to a company focused solely on the life sciences arena with a substantially strengthened balance sheet. Our results for the quarter reflect actions taken to enhance our product offerings in the rapidly-growing areas of automated liquid handling and sample preparation, as well as in our microplate reader product group. These areas, along with our microarray scanners, all grew greater than 40% in the first quarter helping to mitigate the impact of legacy products on our sales growth. We believe our automated liquid handling and sample preparation and microplate reader product lines will continue to show strong growth rates. However, we are disappointed in our order rate for microarray scanners and are working on several initiatives to improve our results. We are also concerned about the current uncertain economic conditions and expect some slowdown in our second quarter growth rate. Nevertheless, we have strong new product introductions planned over the next few months and still expect that our overall growth rate for the year will remain in line with our previous expectations of 15%,'' said Emery G. Olcott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.<<
snipped the boilerplate and tables
Cheers, Tuck |
