St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) beat Wall Street’s forecasts for its third-quarter sales and earnings, sending its shares up nearly 5 percent in early-morning trading despite a lower forecast for full-year earnings.
Profits were up 8.7 percent and sales rose 11.5 percent for the St. Paul, Minn.-based medical device maker, which posted earnings of $226.5 million, or 69 cents per diluted share, on sales of $1.38 billion during the three months ended Oct. 1. That compares with profits of $208.4 million, or 63 cents diluted EPS, on sales of $1.24 billion during the same period last year.
St. Jude’s adjusted EPS was 78 cents per share, excluding charges of $20.9 million (6 cents per share) "primarily related to ongoing restructuring actions that began in the second quarter to realign certain activities in our CRM business as well as employee termination and other costs primarily associated with continuing efforts to improve our international sales & sales support organization," according to a press release, and another $8.5 million (3 cents per share) "related to increased collection risk for accounts receivable related to one customer in Europe." Analysts had expected adjusted EPS of 76 cents per share and St. Jude’s own forecast was for 74 cents to 76 cents.
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But the company cut its prediction for full-year adjusted earnings from $3.25 to $3.30 down to between $3.26 and $3.28 per share; The Street has its hopes pegged on adjusted EPS of $3.27 per share.
Sales of implantable cardiac defibrillators and pacemakers were up 2 percent to $751 million, with ICD sales up 1 percent to $445 million and pacemaker sales up 2 percent to $306 million. Atrial fibrillation sales rose 20 percent to $202 million; neuromodulation sales rose 10 percent to $102 million. Vascular and structural heart product sales were $328 million, up 37 percent including revenues from AGA Medical Inc., which St. Jude bought last year for $1.03 billion.
Sales of vascular products in the third quarter of 2011 were $177 million, up 10 percent from the comparable quarter in 2010.
Structural heart product sales for the third quarter of 2011 were $151 million, a 91 percent increase over the third quarter of 2010, with the addition of AGA Medical products to the business.
STJ shares were up nearly 4.5 percent to $39 as of about 10:15 this morning.
