Earnings After the Bell

After the bell, Fiserv (FISV) reported earnings of 82 cents per share. That was a penny better than expectations.

“We delivered stronger than expected second quarter results across all financial measures including double-digit sales growth,” said Jeffery Yabuki, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv. “At the same time, we continue to advance our integration planning efforts for our pending First Data acquisition which we expect to close on July 29.”

For 2019, Fiserv expects EPS to range between $3.39 and $3.52. That’s growth of 10% to 14%. Fiserv’s CEO has said that Q2 will be the “low watermark” for earnings growth.

Stryker (SYK) reported Q2 earnings of $1.98 per share which was four cents better than expectations. That’s up 12.5% from a year ago. Previously, the company had given us earnings guidance of $1.90 to $1.95 per share. For Q2, organic net sales rose by 8.5%, and operating margin expanded to 25.9%. That’s quite good.

I was also pleased to see Stryker raise its guidance for 2019. The company now expects full-year organic net sales to rise by 7.5% to 8.0%. The company expects earnings to range between $8.15 and $8.25 per share. The previous range was $8.05 to $8.20 per share.

AFLAC (AFL) said it made $1.14 per share for Q2. Forex knocked off one penny per share.

The CEO commented:

“We remain committed to maintaining strong capital ratios on behalf of our policyholders and balancing our financial strength with reinvesting in our business, increasing the dividend, and repurchasing shares. Our dividend track record is supported by the strength of our capital and cash flows. We continue to anticipate that we’ll repurchase in the range of $1.3 to $1.7 billion of our shares in 2019, with the range allowing us to be more tactical in our deployment strategy. As is always the case, this assumes stable capital conditions and the absence of compelling alternatives. At the same time, we recognize that prudent investment in our platform is critical to our growth strategy and driving efficiencies that will impact the bottom line for the long term.

“I want to reiterate our 2019 earnings guidance. Our consistent, solid results in the first half of the year benefited from timing of expenses and a modestly favorable effective tax rate in the period, which puts us on track to produce adjusted earnings per diluted share toward the higher end of the range of $4.10 to $4.30, assuming the 2018 weighted-average exchange rate of 110.39 yen to the dollar. As always, we are working very hard to achieve our earnings-per-share objective while also ensuring we deliver on our promise to policyholders.”

Posted by on July 25th, 2019 at 4:11 pm


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