Shares of Wright Medical (NSDQ:WMGI) are up about 6% since the medical device company reported a return to annual profitability last week on strong 4th-quarter results.
The Arlington, Tenn.-based orthopedic device maker reported profits of $5.4 million, or 14¢ per share, on sales of $123.5 million for the 3 months ended Dec. 31, 2012, for a top-line decline of 2.7% but bottom-line growth of 360.2% compared with Q4 2011.
For the full year, Wright Medical’s profits reached $5.3 million, also 14¢ per share, on sales of $483.8 million, for a sales decline of 5.7% but compared with losses of $5.1 million, or 13¢ per share.
Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, Q4 earnings per share were 5¢, 3¢ ahead of expectations on Wall Street. Full-year adjusted EPS were 41¢, absolutely destroying consensus estimates of 4¢.
"Our performance in the 4th quarter reflects continued strong implementation of the transformational changes to our business. Notably, the 4th consecutive quarter of accelerating global foot and ankle growth underscores the positive progress that we continue to make in our foot and ankle business by leveraging our large, direct sales organization, introducing new products, driving productivity gains and increasing our medical education programs. We also generated strong free cash flow in 2012, which was more than triple the amount generated in the prior year," president & CEO Robert Palmisano said in prepared remarks. "We remain optimistic about the longer-term outlook for our OrthoRecon business and will continue to focus on driving significant improvements in customer satisfaction and ensuring an R&D product pipeline that meets current and future customer needs. With this focus, our team is confident that we will be able to work towards building a growing global OrthoRecon business that delivers exceptional levels of customer service, market rates of growth and significant cash contribution."
Wright said it expects to post sales of $485 million-$495 million this year, excluding the impact of its pending buyout of BioMimetic Therapeutics. Adjusted EPS are forecast to be between zero and 6¢. If the BioMimetic deal closes during the 1st quarter, Wright said its sales forecast will be unchanged. But the deal is expected to generate a 32¢-34¢ hit to EPS, leading to losses of 26¢-34¢, Wright said.
WMGI shares were trading at $22.47 as of about 11:45 a.m. today, up 5.6% over its Feb. 20 closing price but down 0.7% on the day.
