ERLANGEN (dpa-AFX) – The medical technology group Siemens Healthineers expects business to weaken in the coming fiscal year. The company expects adjusted earnings per share (EPS) to decline and comparable sales to almost stagnate. In the past fiscal year 2021/22 (as of the end of September), the Erlangen-based group benefited from the takeover of the US cancer specialist Varian and a boom in the diagnostics business through the sale of rapid antigen tests for the detection of Covid-19. Shareholders can therefore look forward to a higher dividend.
Apart from the good business with the rapid tests, the diagnostics division is burdened, among other things, by high costs and delivery bottlenecks, as the company announced on Wednesday in Erlangen. The introduction of a smaller version of the Atellica laboratory system was postponed because of the pandemic. The company therefore announced a restructuring of the division, which, among other things, provides for a simplification of the portfolio and structures. The management around CEO Bernd Montag estimates costs of 300 million euros by 2025. Healthineers lowered the medium-term expectations for growth and profitability for the division. However, Healthineers is sticking to the growth forecast for the group up to 2025.
In the past financial year, Healthineers increased sales by almost 21 percent to 21.7 billion euros. The rapid tests contributed around 1.5 billion euros to this. On a comparable basis, which excludes currency and portfolio effects, revenues increased by 5.9 percent. All segments contributed to this. If the corona-related sales are deducted here, the comparable growth was reported to be 3.8 percent.
After tax, profit rose by 18 percent to almost 2.1 billion euros, adjusted earnings per share increased by 13 percent to 2.29 euros. Healthineers once again had a strong final quarter and performed better than analysts had expected. Shareholders are to receive a dividend of 95 cents per share, which has been increased by ten cents.
For the new financial year 2022/23, Healthineers expects comparable sales in the range of minus one to plus one percent. If you exclude the test business, the comparable sales growth should be six to eight percent. Healthineers can build on a good order backlog. Adjusted earnings per share are likely to fall to between EUR 2.00 and EUR 2.20 in the coming year. The group is thus below the expectations of the analysts. The share lost around three percent on the Tradegate trading platform compared to the Xetra close the day before./nas/tav/jha/
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