Haemonetics (NYSE:HAE) gained 3.7% in early morning trading today despite missing Wall Street’s 4th-quarter expectations and lower quarterly profits, as investors reacted to its planned $551 million buyout of Pall Corp.‘s (NYSE:PLL) blood management business.
HAE shares were going for $71.24 apiece as of about 11:30 a.m. today after the company released its Q4 earnings report and announced plans to pick up blood management business for $551 million.
"Today manual whole blood collection is a $1.2 billion global market," Haemonetics president & CEO Brian Concannon said in prepared remarks. "This acquisition is an important and exciting step toward our objective of serving that market."
"The Pall business assets provide us with leading filter technology and manufacturing capability, a broad portfolio of manual collection and processing products, a strong and experienced employee base and relationships with major blood authorities and key customers we have in common," he added. "Combined with our internal development initiatives to automate whole blood collection and our suite of blood management software, Haemonetics will represent the broadest product offering to address our customers’ needs in the whole blood market, a market with more than 60 million procedures per year."
The Braintree, Mass.-based blood management giant saw a strong uptick in sales during the 3 months ended March 31.
Haemonetics posted sales of $186.7 million during its 4th quarter, a 9.8% increase over the same period last year.
Profits, however, sank 15.2% to $17.8 million, or 69¢ earned per diluted share, compared with $21 million, or 81¢ per share, during the same quarter last year.
Excluding 1-time items, Haemonetics posted earnings of 80¢ per share, missing Wall Street’s forecast by 3¢.
"The 4th quarter performance completes a fiscal year in which we realized revenue growth every quarter," Concannon said in a statement. "As we close out fiscal 2012, we are in a very good position to succeed in all of our businesses."
Haemonetics’ 2012 sales were close to $728 million, a 7.5% increase from the $676.7 million in sales in 2011. Full-year dropped 16.4% to $66.9 million, or $2.59 per diluted share, compared with $80 million, or $3.12 per share, in 2011.
