St. Jude Medical Inc. on Monday raised its sales and profit outlook for the just-completed fourth quarter, lifting its shares higher on a down day for stocks broadly.
When St. Jude reports results on Jan. 21, fourth-quarter revenue is expected to be around $1.42 billion, up 4 percent, the company said at a JPMorgan health care conference in San Francisco. Wall Street had been expecting revenue of $1.38 billion.
The Little Canada-based company also said that adjusted fourth-quarter earnings are expected to be 97 to 99 cents per share, a range 2 cents higher than the company had issued previously. Analysts had forecast 96 cents a share.
Shares in St. Jude closed up 38 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $66.38 on the New York Stock Exchange. In contrast, broad market indexes fell more than 1 percent Monday, the biggest one-day drop since early November.
The company noted that it would take after-tax charges of 55 cents a share in the quarter, a one-time expense that is not counted in adjusted earnings.
"At the start of 2013, we talked about our plan to accelerate sales throughout the year," CEO Daniel Starks told the conference. "Sales improved from a decline in the first quarter of 2013 to growth at a mid-single digit rate in the fourth quarter. This broad-based improvement in sales growth can be attributed to encouraging market dynamics and the launch of new products in each of our businesses."
Steve Alexander
