Meridian Bioscience Q1 Results Miss View; Cuts Dividend And FY17 Outlook

(RTTNews) - Meridian Bioscience Inc. (VIVO) reported that its first-quarter profit that declined 29% from the prior year. It reduced regular cash dividend, and revised fiscal 2017 guidance downward. Revenue as well as earnings per share for the quarter missed analysts' expectations.

The company said it was very pleased with the trends in Life Science, EMEA diagnostics and Magellan Diagnostics business units. The recovery in core diagnostics unit is proceeding more slowly than planned. As a result, first quarter earnings were depressed as the core diagnostics unit generates the largest contribution to profits. It takes further action to align resources, reduce expenses and optimize investments in product development. The results of first fiscal quarter have led to the downward revision in revenue and earnings guidance, and the reduction in annual indicated dividend rate is intended to enable it to fund its global expansion and new product development.

Based on current business trends, the Board of Directors reduced the annual indicated dividend rate from $0.80 per share to $0.50, and declared the regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.125 per share for the first quarter ended December 31, 2016. The dividend is of record February 6, 2017 and payable February 16, 2017.

Based on current business trends for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, the company now expects net revenues to be in the range of $193 million to $199 million and per share earnings to be between $0.64 and $0.69. Prior guidance was for revenues in the range of $205 million to $210 million and per share diluted earnings of $0.81 to $0.85. Wall Street currently is looking for fiscal year 2017 earnings of $0.82 per share on annual revenues of $206.11 million.

The company reported first quarter net earnings of $6.3 million, or $0.15 per share, decreases of 29% compared to the fiscal 2016 first quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $ 0.20 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items. Quarterly net revenues were $46.8 million, a decrease of 1% from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Wall Street expected revenues of $51.15 million.