Share prices ticked up today for Alere (NYSE:ALR) after the diagnostics company released long-delayed preliminary financial results for the 4th quarter and full year 2016.
Waltham, Mass.-based Alere said in March that it would miss the deadline for releasing last year’s results due to an investigation of inappropriate conduct at its South Korean Standard Diagnostics subsidiary. It wasn’t the 1st delay for Alere, which belatedly filed its 2015 annual report in August 2016 after finding “immaterial errors” in its revenue recognition processes and “material weaknesses” in the way it recognized revenues and accounted for income taxes.
The accounting snafus and a ban imposed on its Arriva Medical diabetes division by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services led to problems with its pending acquisition by Abbott (NYSE:ABT); the companies agreed in April to a lower, $5.3 billion price on the deal.
Today Alere said its goal is to complete the review and file a 2016 annual report no later than June 15. The company expects its Q4 losses to widen some 400% to $-122.3 million, or -$1.41 per share, on a sales decline of -3.3% to $596.8 million for the 3 months ended Dec. 31, 2016, compared with Q4 2015. Analysts on Wall Street were looking for earnings per share of 50¢ on sales of $607.4 million.
Full-year losses are expected to rise 188.7% to -$161.8 million, or -$1.86 per share, on a sales decline of -3.2% to $2.38 billion compared with 2015. The consensus 2016 estimate on The Street was for EPS of $1.93 on sales of $2.39 billion.
Investors reacted by pushing ALR shares up 1.9% to $48.40 apiece today in mid-morning activity.