Beckman Profit Jumps 59% on Settlement

Beckman Coulter Inc., a maker of medical diagnostic and research equipment, Friday reported a sharp increase in first-quarter profit, largely because of a substantial legal settlement.

The Fullerton company posted first-quarter net income of $44.6 million, or 70 cents a share, up 59% from $28 million, or 43 cents, a year earlier. But the results included a $27.7-million gain from settling the company’s claims against an escrow account stemming from its 1997 acquisition of Coulter Corp.

Excluding non-recurring items, Beckman Coulter earned 45 cents a share, beating Wall Street’s estimates by 2 cents.

Beckman Coulter reported a sales increase of 5% to $467.3 million, up from $446.7 million a year earlier, boosted mainly by improved sales in clinical diagnostics. But biomedical research sales remained largely flat, analysts said, because of softness in biotechnology and pharmaceutical research spending.

“Beckman Coulter had a solid quarter in a restrained research market and delivered results at the top end of our previously announced outlook,” Chairman and Chief Executive John P. Wareham said in a statement.

But analysts differed on the company’s outlook for the rest of 2003. Steve Hamill of RBC Capital Markets was concerned that the company had very little revenue growth, although he noted that Beckman has some promising new products, including smaller space-saving centrifuges and a workstation for laboratory analysis.

In the first quarter, Beckman Coulter also repurchased 700,000 of its shares.

On Friday, shares of Beckman Coulter closed at $36.50, up $1.25, on the New York Stock Exchange.