Wright Medical posts street-beating Q4, 2018 earnings

Wright Medical (NSDQ:WMGI) today posted fourth quarter and full year 2018 earnings that beat expectations on Wall Street.

The Amsterdam-based company posted losses of approximately $33.8 million, or 27¢ per share, on sales of $238.1 million for the three months ended December 31, seeing a swing into red ink while sales grew 9.4% compared with the same period during the previous year.

After adjusting to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were 11¢, ahead of the 5¢ consensus on Wall Street, where analysts expected to see sales of approximately $237 million, which the company topped.

For the full year, Wright Medical posted losses of $169.5 million, or $1.51 per share, on sales of approximately $836.2 million, seeing losses shrink 16.3% while sales grew 12.2% compared with the previous year.

Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per share were at 0¢, ahead of the 7¢ loss-per-share consensus on Wall Street, where analysts expected to see sales of $835 million, which the company topped.

“As previously reported, our fourth quarter results represent an outstanding performance across all our businesses.  This performance was driven by continued strong shoulder growth in the quarter, which included the ongoing launch of our Perform Reversed glenoid and continued contributions from our Simpliciti shoulder system.  We anticipate that these products, as well as accelerating adoption of our Blueprint enabling technology and the upcoming launch of our Revive revision shoulder system, will continue to drive strong shoulder sales growth in 2019 and beyond.  We also had strong adjusted EBITDA with 210 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion for the full-year and our adjusted gross margins of nearly 80% are some of the best in high-growth medtech. In our U.S. lower extremities business, we got off to a very strong start with Cartiva revenue of $9.5 million, which exceeded our expectations in the fourth quarter.  On January 1, Cartiva was fully launched with our U.S. lower extremities sales force, including the integration of the former Cartiva distributors that we have chosen to retain.  We also saw continued strong growth in our core products as well as in total ankle.  Our U.S. biologics business continued to be driven by the ongoing roll-out of Augment Injectable.  We intend to continue to focus on strong execution and new product launches throughout 2019,” prez & CEO Robert Palmisano said in a press release.

Wright Medical released guidance for the 2019 year, expecting to sales of between approximately $954 million and $966 million for the full year with non-GAAP adjusted EPS of between 17¢ and 25¢.

Shares in Wright Medical have stayed steady in after-hours trading after dropping approximately 4.2% today to close at $30.02.

Earlier this month, Wright Medical said that it inked a refinancing deal looking to exchange $112.1 million in existing 2% convertible senior notes due 2020 for $120.2 million in newly issued 1.625% senior notes due 2023.

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