Danaher (NYSE:DHR) shares ticked up this morning on fourth-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast.
The Washington, D.C.-based company posted profits of $1.2 billion, or $1.66 per share, on sales of $6.8 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2020, for a -4.8% bottom-line slide on sales growth of 38.9%.
Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were $2.08, 21¢ ahead of Wall Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $6.5 billion.
Danaher’s life sciences segment posted revenue totaling $3.4 billion (75.4% growth from Q4 2019), while its diagnostics arm registered sales of $2.2 billion (23.4% growth year-over-year).
The company’s growth also included contributions from Cytiva, which is the biopharma business (formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences) acquired by Danaher in April.
“For the full year 2020, we achieved nearly 10% core revenue growth including Cytiva, strong margin expansion, and more than $5 billion of free cash flow,” Danaher president & CEO Rainer M. Blair said in a news release. “But our financial results only tell part of the story. Despite many unforeseen challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, our team turned the challenges we faced into impactful opportunities to support our customers and the global community.
Blair described the addition of Cytiva as transformative for the company. “Going forward, we believe the combination of our portfolio, innovative team, and strong balance sheet — all powered by the Danaher Business System — positions us to deliver sustainable, long-term shareholder value for many years to come.”
Danaher is projecting revenue growth for the first quarter of 2021 to be in the mid-to-high-teens range, while full-year growth is expected to register in the low-double-digit range.
DHR shares were up 2.6% at $227.89 per share in mid-morning trading today. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — was up 1.7%.