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Quest Wraps Up Effort to Refocus on Dx Information Services; Lowers 2016 Revenue Guidance

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Quest Diagnostics announced it has completed efforts to refocus its business on diagnostic information services following six divestitures that have yielded $1 billion in proceeds.

The latest divestiture was Quest's sale of Focus Diagnostics' products business to DiaSorin for $300 million in cash. That transaction completed last week.

Quest said it plans to use the money from this transaction to repurchase its common stock. The company has repurchased $2 billion in common stock since 2012.

"Completing our refocus effort by divesting the products business reaffirms our commitment to the diagnostic information services business," Quest CEO Steve Rusckowski said in a statement. "We have created shareholder value through the divestitures and our disciplined approach to capital deployment."

Additionally, Quest updated its annual revenue guidance to between $7.47 billion and $7.54 billion, which would be a 2 percent to 3 percent increase over its 2015 revenues of $7.32 billion. Previously, the company had projected 2016 revenues of between $7.52 billion and $7.59 billion.

Quest maintained its prior guidance for EPS between $5.02 and $5.17.

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