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Biotech / Medical : ICN Pharmaceuticals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Young who wrote (844)	5/8/1998 1:54:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1029

a couple more nice releases: INTERVIEW - ICN could see 20 pct EPS growth May 8, 1998 12:58 PM LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) - California-based drugs firm ICN Pharmaceuticals ICN is "cautiously optimistic" that it can live up to analysts' projections of 20 percent growth in earnings per share, said chairman and chief executive Milan Panic. "Over the last ten years our EPS growth has been about 23 percent. I think those expectations (of 20 percent growth) are realistic," Panic told Reuters in an interview. "That doesn't mean that from time to time, especially being in Eastern Europe, there won't be a glitch like the (recent) Yugoslav devaluation, but they will be one off," he said. ICN said in April that the devaluation of the Yugoslav dinar by 82 percent would result in a charge that may have a material effect on earnings. Yugoslav sales account for around 30 percent of ICN's total revenues. Panic, a Serb by birth but now a US citizen, was prime minister of Yugoslavia in 1992 for an eight month period. ICN is the largest drugs company operating in Eastern Europe. It has European headquarters in Moscow and manufacturing units in several Eastern European countries. Panic has led a buying spree in Eastern Europe in recent months and has pledged to invest $300 million in Russia over the next five years on top of the $120 million it has spent there in the last three years. Panic was upbeat on prospects for the Russian economy under the leadership of Sergei Kiriyenko's new government. "I think the government will be better, more reformist, (moving) more towards a market economy and I expect only positive things of this change," he said. "If Russia succeeds, all the Eastern European economies will succeed. I rate them now in this order - Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary," Panic said.