NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Agilent reported after the close of the markets on Monday that revenues grew 16 percent during its fiscal second quarter, as its Electronics Measurement Group rebounded from recent woes to post an 18 percent bounce year over year.
Agilent reported total revenues of $1.27 billion for the three-month period ended April 30, compared to $1.09 billion for the second quarter of 2009.
The company's Life Sciences group posted revenues of $334 million for the quarter, up 12 percent from $298 million in Q2 2009, while Chemical Analysis revenues climbed $238 million, up 19 percent from $200 million a year ago.
Driving the companywide improvement, though, was Electronic Measurement, Agilent's largest segment, which brought in revenues of $699 million, up from $593 million in the year-ago period. For the past several quarters that business has seen a slump, dragging down the entire company. In the fiscal first quarter of the year, the company said that revenues in Electronic Measurement slipped 2 percent year-over-year.
On Friday, Agilent said that it had closed on its purchase of Varian, 10 months after the deal was first announced. During a conference call for Agilent's earnings on Monday, company CEO William Sullivan said that despite the longer-than-expected approval process and the sale of certain Varian businesses to Bruker to satisfy European regulators, the company remains "very confident" that it will achieve $75 million in cost synergies during the next four to five years.
Teams from Agilent and Varian have been developing "detailed integration plans for the next several months," he added. "By the end of the calendar year, our plan is to integrate our legal entities … services and support processes, sales and marketing processes, Web environment, and begin the conversion of the factories to our ERP system."
The Varian acquisition, the company said, is expected to add about $370 million to Agilent's revenues in the second half of the fiscal year, 30 percent of which will be in Life Sciences and the rest in Chemical Analysis.
For the second quarter, Life Sciences orders rose 15 percent to $331 million from $287 million a year ago.
Net income for the period was $108 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $101 million, or $0.29 per share, a year ago. During the quarter, Agilent had restructuring charges of $22 million, Varian-related costs of $10 million, and $9 million of non-cash amortization, the company said. On an adjusted basis, Agilent's EPS was $.43, beating analysts' consensus estimate of $.41.
For Q2 2009, Agilent took asset impairment charges of $98 million and a non-cash amortization charge of $12 million. It also recognized a quarter-to-date tax adjustment of $31 million and had other net charges of $4 million.
The company spent $150 million in R&D during Q2 2010, down 12 percent year over year from $170 million. Its SG&A spending was flat at $407 million.
Agilent finished the quarter with $2.65 billion in cash and cash equivalents, as well as $1.55 billion in short-term restricted cash and cash equivalents.
During the conference call, Didier Hirsch, acting chief financial officer, said that excluding the effects of Varian, revenues for the third quarter are expected to rise between 16 and 19 percent over year-ago figures, to between $1.23 billion and $1.26 billion.
For full-year fiscal 2010, revenues are projected to increase 12 percent year-over-year to more than $5 billion. On a per-share basis, income is projected to be between $1.70 and $1.75, up $0.05 per share from Agilent's earlier projection.