NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Bruker today said that its first quarter-revenues increased 14 percent year over year with the Bruker Scientific Instruments segment growing 13 percent.
For the three months ended March 31, Bruker brought in total revenues of $405.6 million, up from $357 million a year ago, beating consensus analyst expectations of $388.3.
Last week, the firm had said that it expected to report first-quarter revenues of around $400 million with organic revenue growth of around 10 percent year over year.
Excluding currency exchange effects, first-quarter revenues grew 15 percent. Organic growth was 14 percent, Bruker said.
Bruker Scientific Instruments had revenues of $378.1 million, compared to $335.8 million a year ago. The segment's revenues increased 14 percent year over year, excluding currency exchange effects, and 12 percent organically.
Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies increased sales 25 percent year over year to $30 million from $24 million. Excluding currency exchange effects, the segment's revenues improved 30 percent year over year.
Bruker last month withdrew its proposed initial public offering for the BEST segment, which it had filed in late 2010. Today, Tom Rosa, CFO of BEST, said that the withdrawal was due to current equity market conditions, and in order to save on legal, accounting, and other costs associated with maintaining a Form S-1 filing current.
In a statement, Bruker President and CEO Frank Laukien said that the firm's backlog in the first quarter continued to grow due to "excellent" orders. "The tone in many of our end markets has improved since the fourth quarter of 2011, and our focus on new products and innovative solutions for major secular trends in life and materials sciences and related industries is resulting in excellent, profitable organic growth."
"We definitely do see relatively weak or flat US academic demand," Laukien said on a conference call following the release of the results. "We don't expect that to change much in the next three years, quite honestly."
Other than US academic funding and southern Europe, basically everything has been quite solid with many pockets of strength.
The firm's R&D expenses for the quarter rose 8 percent to $48.2 million from $44.7 million, and SG&A expenses jumped 17 percent to $104.4 million from $89.3 million.
Bruker posted a profit of $15.1 million, or $.09 per share for the quarter, compared to a profit of $11.3 million, or $.07 per share, a year ago. Adjusted EPS was $.14, surpassing Wall Street estimates of $.12 per share.
Bruker Scientific Instruments' adjusted EPS was $.15, while BEST's adjusted net loss was $.01.
The Billerica, Mass.-based company ended the first quarter with $233.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash.
In Tuesday morning trade on the Nasdaq, shares of Bruker jumped 9 percent to $16.42.