Allergan Reports Doubled Profits
Irvine eye-care company Allergan Inc., celebrating its 50th anniversary Wednesday, reported a doubling of its fourth-quarter profit, raised its quarterly dividend and adopted a shareholders’ rights plan.
The company, which was started with one product in quarters above a Los Angeles drugstore, posted quarterly net income of $59.3 million, or 44 cents a share, compared with the previous year’s final-quarter profit of $28.6 million, or 21 cents a share.
Quarterly revenue rose 10% to $380.3 million from $346.2 million.
“The sales of each of our product lines continues to accelerate, and we are gaining market share on a global basis in every business,” David E.I. Pyott, the company’s president, said in a statement.
For the year, Allergan earned $188.2 million, or $1.39 a share, compared with a loss the previous year of $90.2 million, or 69 cents a share. Annual revenue grew 8% to $1.4 billion from $1.3 billion.
Earnings for both the quarter and the year include one-time gains on sales of investments and the divestiture of certain skin-care products. Without those gains, the company earned 40 cents for the quarter and $1.29 for the year.
Allergan, which turned an anti-allergy nose drop into an eye drop to treat allergic conjunctivitis, now has an array of eye and skin care products, as well as newer medicines such as the neuromuscular drug Botox and glaucoma treatment Alphagan.
Wall Street bumped the company’s shares up $2 Wednesday as the stock closed at $57 a share in New York Stock Exchange trading.
Allergan’s board raised the fourth-quarter dividend to 8 cents a share from 7 cents, payable March 10, to stockholders of record on Feb. 18.
The company also gave shareholders the right to buy one preferred share for every share of Allergan common stock should anyone acquire or offer to acquire 15% of the company. The shareholders’ rights plan is not a move to prevent a takeover, the company said, but is meant to encourage potential buyers to negotiate through its board. The plan expires in 2010.
The financial news wasn’t quite so rosy at the company’s research and development spinoff, Allergan Specialty Therapeutics Inc.
Allergan Specialty lost $14.7 million, or $4.49 a share, for the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $11.1 million, or $3.41 a share, for the last three months of the previous year. Revenue fell 48% to $1.3 million from $2.5 million.
For the year, Allergan Specialty lost $52.8 million, or $16.13 a share, compared with a loss of $36.8 million, or $11.24 a share, the previous year. Annual revenue fell to $7.1 million from $9 million.
The company was formed by Allergan in 1998 to develop potential pharmaceutical products, based primarily on certain Allergan Inc.’s technologies, and to commercialize the products, most likely through licensing to Allergan.
