Friday 29 Mar 2024
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BATU KAWAN: Haemonetics Corp, a New York-listed blood management company, expects double-digit growth in operating income and earnings per share (EPS) for the financial year ending March 29, 2016 (FY16), partly boosted by the opening of its first Asia-Pacific manufacturing plant here.

“We just finished our third [financial] quarter [ended Dec 27, 2014] [3QFY15] and we have affirmed our growth [outlook] for FY15 to [return] to the mid single digits,” president and chief executive officer Brian Concannon told reporters after the plant opening by Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng yesterday.

“However, we see ourselves growing in the double digits in operating income and EPS in FY16 with the opening of this new plant here,” he said.

For 3QFY15, Haemonetics posted US$231.8 million (RM828.9 million) in revenue, down 4.3% from a year ago, while adjusted EPS was US$0.53, down 14%.

Revenue for the nine-month period ended Dec 27, 2014 fell 2% to US$683.9 million from a year ago, due to pricing decline in US blood centres, a weakening yen and worsening economic conditions in Russia. Adjusted EPS was US$1.38, down 20%.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts-based group has pumped RM105 million into the new plant in Penang, and it plans to invest another RM50 million in the next three to five years to install more machinery and expand its clean room area.

“We will employ 250 people in the [plant’s] first year of operation and to increase this number to 800 in the next three years,” said Concannon.

“China is a rapidly growing market for us, although Japan, which is an established market for Haemonetics, is somewhat flat. In Australia and New Zealand, we are growing because we have taken a direct position there. Our growth in these countries is because of medical advances and the first products that command a demand is platelets. Sick patients particularly oncology patients would require platelet products,” he added.

Concannon said Haemonetics currently commands a 70% share of the commercial plasma market segment, platelets (30%), whole blood collection (15%), cell salvage (30%), and diagnostic and Thrombelastograph testing space (85%).

“We are the only company that is on the demand side for blood in hospitals and supply side of blood collection products. Underpinning that, we are a robust software business that helps mine customer data and turn it into information. This will make it very relevant in the blood management area,” he said, adding that the Penang plant will cater to all sectors except commercial plasma.

It will produce 4,500 single-use (collection and transfusion of blood and blood products) apheresis disposable units daily, and will increase production to 17,500 units per day a year later.

 

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 6, 2015.

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