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Biotech / Medical : Laser Vision Centers, Inc. (NASDAQ: LVCI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MGV who wrote (170)	9/11/1998 3:53:00 PM
From: Jim Mac	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 413

LVCI's gross margin has never been 49%. That info must be a future projection. 10-Q says they acquired more equipment. Also, number of U.S. surgeons using their services jumped 31%, by 89, from April Q to July Q. If LVCI's gross profit margin had stayed at April Q's level (which was highest percentage rate ever), they would have made over $0.07. As they build volume on the new equipment, and absorb any additional costs, plus realize the benefit of RSR acquisition, they should make $0.10 per Q soon. I still think they'll do $1.00 in CY99 (untaxed), but that's just my opinion. If they do an extra 15,000 procedures in CY99, at gross profit of $500 each, and SGA stays flat, that's an extra $0.75 to the bottom line, on top of maybe $0.40 run rate by late this year. With or without hyperopia. Untaxed. Unless other expenses go up more. LVCI gets average of maybe $750 per procedure, minus $250 Visx royalty, leaves around $500 gross profit from additional procedures, since other costs are basically fixed. For a long time, I thought analysts were wrong about Visx's 1998 earnings. I thought $1.30 was way too low, based on procedure count. Now, the estimates are for over $2.00, closer to my estimate. Hopefully, I'm right this time too.