Boston Properties net income soars
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Boston Properties Inc., the largest US office real estate investment trust by income, said first-quarter net income rose more than 12-fold on sales of properties including Manhattan's 5 Times Square.
Net income rose to $854 million, or $6.99 a share, from $67.7 million, or 59 cents a share, a year ago, the Boston company said.
Funds from operations, a measure of cash flow used by REITs, rose 11.6 percent to $133 million, or $1.10 a share, from $119.2 million or $1.03 a share a year ago. On that basis, which doesn't conform with generally accepted accounting principles, the results exceeded the average estimate of $1.08 a share by 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. (Bloomberg)
AT&T profit nearly doubles in quarter
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AT&T Inc., the largest US phone company, said first-quarter profit almost doubled after it reaped $900 million in savings from takeovers.
Net income increased to $2.85 billion, or 45 cents a share, from $1.45 billion, or 37 cents, a year earlier, San Antonio-based AT&T said. Sales rose 84 percent to $29 billion.
AT&T trimmed marketing, network, and administrative expenses in its first full quarter since completing the $86 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp.
Excluding merger-related costs, accounting changes and the sale of wireless assets, earnings were 65 cents per share, or 4 cents a share more than the average forecast among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
AT&T raised a forecast for its 2007 operating profit margin to 23-24 percent, up from 21-23 percent. (Globe wire services)
Amazon.com beats Wall St. forecasts
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Web retailer Amazon.com Inc. said first-quarter profit more than doubled, sending shares sharply higher in after-hours trading. The company also raised its revenue outlook for the year.
Quarterly earnings rose to $111 million, or 26 cents per share, from $51 million, or 12 cents per share, during the same period last year.
Analysts had forecast a profit of 15 cents per share.
A $12 million reduction in Amazon's tax bite helped nudge results higher, as did a weak dollar against foreign currencies, which added about $5 million to the bottom line, the company's chief financial officer said in a conference call.
Revenue rose 32 percent to $3.02 billion, surpassing Wall Street's expectation of $2.92 billion in sales. (AP)
Inhalers, cost cuts propel Sepracor
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Sepracor Inc.'s profit more than doubled as sales surged for its asthma inhalers, but the company lowered its revenue forecast for the insomnia drug Lunesta.
First-quarter net income rose to $22.5 million, or 19 cents a share, from $10 million, or 9 cents, a year earlier, the Marlborough company said. Revenue increased 16 percent to $331.4 million, still short of the $337.4 million average in a Bloomberg survey.
Xopenex, the asthma drug, generated $173 million in sales, up 24 percent from a year earlier. The company spent 17 percent less on research and development for all drugs, and 1.1 percent more on marketing to promote Lunesta, a competitor to Sanofi-Aventis SA's top-selling Ambien, which lost patent protection three days ago.
The cut for research and development, which enabled earnings to beat estimates, "isn't going to be sustainable because every one of their three new clinical programs is advancing this year," said Ian Sanderson, an analyst with Cowen & Co. in Boston. "We would have expected them to cut promotional spending instead."
Sepracor also lowered its prediction for Lunesta sales to between $640 million and $660 million from the $685 million given last quarter.
A reduction for Lunesta makes Sepracor more dependent on Xopenex, and government insurance payments for the nebulizer form of the drug may be reduced, said Cowen. (Bloomberg)
Waters rises on currency exchange
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Waters Corp., which makes a range of instruments for scientific analysis, reported a 27 percent rise in its first-quarter profit on broad adoption of its new products and the benefits of currency conversion.
Milford-based Waters posted a profit of $55.9 million, or 54 cents per share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $44.2 million, or 42 cents per share. Sales rose to $330.8 million from $290.2 million a year earlier.
Excluding restructuring charges and amortization, profit was 56 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 53 cents per share in the period on revenue of $322.8 million. (AP) 