Beckman Coulter Announces 1998 Results and Election of New Chairman.FULLERTON, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Jan. 25, 1999--Beckman Coulter, Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :BEC) Monday announced fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 1998 results, together with changes to its Board of Directors as two members retire. Sales in the quarter were $483 million, up 14 percent from $424 million in 1997, and sales for the year were $1.7 billion, 43 percent greater than the $1.2 billion reported in the prior year. Sales comparisons are affected by the October 31, 1997 acquisition of Coulter Corporation. Year-to-year changes in currency exchange rates increased fourth quarter sales growth by 1 percent and decreased yearly sales growth by 3 percent. At the end of 1997, the company recorded estimates of the purchase accruals Accruals Accounts on a balance sheet that represent liabilities and non-cash-based assets used in accrual-based accounting. These accounts include, among many others, accounts payable, accounts receivable, goodwill, future tax liability and future interest expense. necessary to acquire Coulter. As integration work progressed during the year, activities differed from the plan, resulting in a $17 million savings in acquisition integration costs. The quarterly results reflect a $36 million reduction in goodwill and a $19 million increase in restructure costs. Benefits of the goodwill reduction will be realized over time, but the increase in restructure costs has been taken as a $.38 per share special charge in the fourth quarter. Earnings were $1.01 per share for the quarter and $1.52 per share for the year before the special charge. Reported diluted earnings per share diluted earnings per share An earnings measure calculated by dividing net income less preferred stock dividends for a period by the average number of shares of common stock that would be outstanding if all convertible securities were converted into shares of were $.63 for the quarter and $1.14 for the year. This compares to a loss of $11.63 per share in the fourth quarter of 1997 resulting from acquisition charges and a corresponding loss of $9.58 per share for the year after earnings of $1.94 per share for the first three quarters. As of December 1998, company-wide employment has been reduced by about 1,400 positions from the date of the Coulter acquisition. Essentially all staff and diagnostic commercial operations have been consolidated and a manufacturing facility in England has been closed. In addition, previously announced plant closings in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (pwār`tō rē`kō), island (2005 est. pop. 3,917,000), 3,508 sq mi (9,086 sq km), West Indies, c.1,000 mi (1,610 km) SE of Miami, Fla. and San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. will be completed in 1999. Now, in each region of the world, the integrated companies are operating with common, rationalized information systems and Beckman Coulter This article needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. customers have a single source in each market for sales, service, ordering, shipping and billing. These and other actions have allowed the company to improve its operating profile throughout the year. In the fourth quarter, the gross profit margin Gross profit margin Gross profit divided by sales, which is equal to each sales dollar left over after paying for the cost of goods sold. gross profit margin A measure calculated by dividing gross profit by net sales. was 48.8 percent and earnings before interest expense, tax and special charges were 13.1 percent of sales. In addition to synergy The enhanced result of two or more people, groups or organizations working together. In other words, one and one equals three! It comes from the Greek "synergia," which means joint work and cooperative action. savings, a key strategic benefit of the Beckman Coulter combination is a greater diagnostic presence and enhanced selling leverage from a more comprehensive product portfolio. When operating separately, Beckman and Coulter sold to the same customers but had no overlap in their product offerings. Together, they can now address 75 percent of hospital laboratory testing and essentially all blood testing considered routine. John P. Wareham, president and chief executive officer said, "We are very pleased with our integration process. Beckman Coulter has become a unified, profitable company operating on a worldwide basis. Today the company is a leading diagnostics supplier at the forefront of improving customer productivity. We have successfully implemented programs that will let us operate in 1999 with improved gross margins, better expense ratios and lower interest payments." Going forward, diagnostics (about 80 percent of company sales) will benefit from a product portfolio that includes a range of automation capabilities and several recently shipped new systems. This includes the SYNCHRON LX(R)20 Automated Clinical Chemistry system, the IMMAGE(R) Immunochemistry Immunochemistry A discipline concerned both with the structure of antibody (immunoglobulin) molecules and with their ability to bind an apparently limitless number of diverse chemical structures (antigens); with the structure, organization, and rearrangement system, the Access(R) Immunoassy system and the Coulter(R) Gen-S(TM) Hematology hematology Branch of medicine concerned with the nature, function, and diseases of the blood. It covers the cellular and serum composition of blood, the coagulation process, blood-cell formation, hemoglobin synthesis, and disorders of all these. system with slide maker option. The Access system extends the company's capability in high sensitivity testing for cardiac, hormone and cancer diagnostics while the LX20 and IMMAGE systems double the test throughput of their predecessors. This higher throughput extends the company's capability to more directly meet the needs of larger hospitals where chemistry products can now be positioned as a companion to the Gen-S system. The Gen-S and its predecessor hematology systems have a market share that approaches 55 percent in large hospitals and the successful leveraging of this installed base to place the new chemistry systems is an important example of Beckman Coulter sales synergies. Bioresearch bi·o·re·search n. Research in the biological sciences. (about 20 percent of company sales) is benefiting from a continued expansion of Beckman Coulter's capability in high-throughput screening High-throughput screening (HTS), is a method for scientific experimentation especially used in drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology and chemistry. Purpose and method (HTS HTS Heights HTS Harmonized Tariff System HTS High Throughput Screening (biomolecular assay screening) HTS High-Throughput Screening (Pharmaceutical Industry) HTS Harmonized Tariff Schedule ) of candidate compounds in pharmaceutical drug discovery, which is strengthening its leading position in this segment. These sales to privately funded laboratories are reducing exposure to the relatively volatile publicly funded academic research segment. In the U.S., over the last two years, sales to the more stable and profitable bio-pharmaceutical sector have grown from 43 percent to 48 percent of bioresearch revenues. In matters relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc the Board of Directors, Louis T. Rosso has announced his decision to retire from the Board as of February 4, 1999, where he serves as Chairman. Rosso, 65, retired as Beckman Coulter Chief Executive Officer in September of 1998, after completing a career with the company spanning nearly forty years. The Board of Directors has designated Mr. Rosso Beckman Coulter Chairman Emeritus e·mer·i·tus adj. Retired but retaining an honorary title corresponding to that held immediately before retirement: a professor emeritus. n. pl. and elected John P. Wareham, president and chief executive officer, to assume the additional duties of Chairman. The board has no immediate plans to fill this vacated position and will operate with 11 members for the foreseeable fore·see tr.v. fore·saw , fore·seen , fore·see·ing, fore·sees To see or know beforehand: foresaw the rapid increase in unemployment. future. Separately, Dennis C. Fill, 69, has withdrawn from the Board in conjunction with his retirement from ATL (Active Template Library) A set of software routines from Microsoft that provide the basic framework for creating ActiveX and COM objects. Stemming from the standard template library (STL) that comes with C++ compilers, ATL includes an object wizard that sets up Ultrasound ultrasound or sonography, in medicine, technique that uses sound waves to study and treat hard-to-reach body areas. In scanning with ultrasound, high-frequency sound waves are transmitted to the area of interest and the returning echoes recorded , Inc. (Nasdaq:ATLI), where he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Ronald W. Dollens had been elected to fill this vacated position. Mr. Dollens is President and Chief Executive Officer of Guidant Corporation (NYSE:GDT GDT Global Descriptor Table GDT Geographic Data Technology Inc. GDT Gas Discharge Tube (energy, electrotechinical and electronics) GDT Getting Things Done GDT Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing GDT Ground Data Terminal ). Guidant has sales of approximately $1.3 billion in the medical device field with products for cardiac rhythm management Cardiac rhythm management is a field of treatment in cardiology. The purpose is managing cardiac rhythm disorders. Usually it involves artificial pacemakers and/or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator therapy as well as antiarrhythmia drugs. , vascular intervention, and cardiac and vascular surgery Vascular surgery is a subspecialty of general surgery in which diseases of the vascular system, or arteries and veins, are managed, largely via surgical intervention. The vascular surgeon is trained in the diagnosis and management of diseases affecting all parts of the vascular . The annual meeting of stockholders will be held on April 8, 1999, at 10:00 AM at the Company's headquarters in Fullerton, California Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 126,003. It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. . Each stockholder of record as of February 8, 1999 will receive formal notice of the meeting together with the proxy statement Proxy Statement A document containing the information that a company is required by the SEC to provide to shareholders so they can make informed decisions about matters that will be brought up at an annual stockholder meeting. and proxy card A proxy card is an easily-acquired or home-made substitute for a collectible card. A proxy is used when a collectible card game player does not own a card, and it would be impractical for such purposes to acquire the card. . This press release contains forward-looking statements forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. regarding the performance of Beckman Coulter's integrated sales organization, timing of sales, anticipated cost savings, and expected performance of its diagnostics and bioresearch operations. These forward looking statements are based largely on the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Actual outcomes could differ from those anticipated by these forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including, among other things, the impact of economic conditions in Europe and Asia, government cost containment cost containment, n the features of a dental benefits program or of the administration of the program designed to reduce or eliminate certain charges to the plan. initiatives, reduction in potential market as a result of consolidation among customers, introduction of competitive systems or products, the actual extent and timing of cost savings, and the extent to which cost savings are reduced by increases in other costs. Beckman Coulter, Inc. is a leading provider of instrument systems and complementary products that simplify and automate processes in life science and clinical laboratories. The company's products are used throughout the world in all phases of the battle against disease, from pioneering medical research and drug discovery to diagnostic testing Diagnostic testing Testing performed to determine if someone is affected with a particular disease. Mentioned in: Von Willebrand Disease that aids in patient treatment. Annual sales for the company totaled $1.7 billion in 1998, with about half of this amount generated outside the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. .
BECKMAN COULTER, INC.
FOURTH QUARTER REPORT
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
(Amounts in Millions, Except Amounts Per Share)
Three Months Ended Twelve Months Ended
December 31, December 31,
1998 1997 1998 1997
Sales $483.3 $423.9 $1,718.2 $1,198.0
Cost of Sales 247.3 237.3 920.6 609.7
Gross Profit 236.0 186.6 797.6 588.3
Operating expenses:
Selling, general and
administrative 128.7 122.9 492.3 360.3
Research and development 46.4 43.3 171.4 123.6
In-process research and
development --- 282.0 --- 282.0
Restructuring charge 19.1 59.4 19.1 59.4
194.2 507.6 682.8 825.3
Operating income (loss) 41.8 (321.0) 114.8 (237.0)
Nonoperating expense:
Interest income (1.3) (3.2) (13.4) (6.1)
Interest expense 19.6 17.7 87.8 29.4
Other, net (1.1) (3.9) (6.2) (8.4)
17.2 10.6 68.2 14.9
Earnings (loss) before income
taxes 24.6 (331.6) 46.6 (251.9)
Income tax provision 6.1 (11.4) 13.1 12.5
Net earnings (loss) $ 18.5 $(320.2) $ 33.5 $(264.4)
Basic earnings (loss) per
share $ 0.65 $(11.63) $ 1.19 $(9.58)
Weighted average number of
shares outstanding --
(in thousands) 28,287 27,522 28,028 27,611
Diluted earnings (loss) per
share $ 0.63 $(11.63) $ 1.14 $(9.58)
Weighted average number of
shares and dilutive shares outstanding --
(in thousands) 29,438 27,522 29,331 27,611
Dividends declared
per share $ 0.16 $ 0.15 $ 0.61 $ 0.60
-0-
BECKMAN COULTER, INC.
FOURTH QUARTER REPORT
CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
(Amounts in Millions, Except Amounts per Share)
December 31, December 31,
1998 1997
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and equivalents $ 24.7 $ 33.5
Trade receivables and other 540.2 524.6
Inventories 302.8 332.3
Deferred income taxes 60.5 53.0
Other current assets 28.4 33.3
Total current assets 956.6 976.7
Property, plant and equipment, net 309.4 410.9
Intangibles, less accumulated
amortization of $24.6 in 1998 and
$10.6 in 1997 419.1 444.9
Goodwill, less accumulated
amortization of $14.9 in 1998 and
$6.0 in 1997 356.1 402.8
Other assets 92.1 95.7
Total assets $2,133.3 $2,331.0
Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity
Current liabilities:
Notes payable and current maturities
of long-term debt $ 135.1 $ 68.9
Accounts payable, accrued
expenses and other liabilities 523.0 756.4
Income taxes 61.2 69.6
Total current liabilities 719.3 894.9
Long-term debt, less current
maturities 982.2 1,181.3
Other liabilities 304.9 173.0
Total liabilities 2,006.4 2,249.2
Stockholders' equity
Preferred stock, $0.10 par value;
authorized 10.0 shares;
none issued --- ---
Common stock, $0.10 par value;
authorized 75.0 shares; shares
issued 29.1 at 1998 and 1997;
shares outstanding 28.4 at
1998 and 27.6 at 1997 2.9 2.9
Additional paid-in capital 131.9 126.6
Retained earnings 35.4 19.0
Accumulated other comprehensive
loss (13.9) (13.8)
Treasury stock, at cost (29.4) (52.9)
Total stockholders' equity 126.9 81.8
Total liabilities and
stockholders' equity $2,133.3 $2,331.0
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