Business News
DANAHER ISSUES REVISED FOURTH QUARTER EARNINGS GUIDANCE
Tuesday 09. December 2008 - Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) announced today that it expects fourth quarter 2008 adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.03 to $1.10 compared to the guidance range of adjusted earnings per share provided on October 16, 2008 of $1.17 to $1.25. Fourth quarter 2007 adjusted earnings per share were $1.12. Earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2008 (including the impact of the fourth quarter 2008 restructuring charge and certain non-cash charges related to the acquisition of Tektronix for the fair value adjustments to recorded inventory and deferred revenue) are expected to be in the range of $0.82 to $0.89, while fourth quarter 2007 earnings per share were $0.97.
Adjusted earnings per share for full year 2008 are expected to be in the range of $4.15 to $4.22, which, based on the mid-point of the range, would be an increase of 9% over full year 2007 adjusted earnings per share. Earnings per share for the full year 2008 are expected to be in the range of $3.85 to $3.92 which, based on the mid-point of the range, would be an increase of 4% over full year 2007 earnings per share. Please see the attached schedule for a reconciliation of the adjusted earnings per share measures provided above to the comparable GAAP measures.
H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, “Global economic conditions have continued to deteriorate over the last several weeks impacting many of our customers as well as a number of our businesses. In addition, the strengthening of the dollar against other global currencies has created additional headwinds that will negatively impact our financial results. However, we still expect continued strong free cash flow performance in the fourth quarter. In order to better position the company in light of the current economic backdrop we are deploying approximately $90 million of restructuring investments in the fourth quarter, eliminating approximately 1700 net positions and 13 facilities. We are expecting these investments to generate approximately $100 million of savings in 2009. In addition, we have implemented a wage and salary freeze across most of our geographies and businesses. We believe these actions coupled with our high quality portfolio, our talented organization and our Danaher Business System, provide us the ability to outperform during these challenging times.”
Danaher will host its Analyst and Investor event in New York City on December 11th, during which management will discuss the outlook for the fourth quarter of 2008 and 2009. This event and the accompanying slide presentation will be webcast on the “Investors” section of Danahers website at http://www.danaher.com. A replay of the audio portion of the webcast and the slide presentation can be accessed on the “Investors” section of Danahers website (under the subheading “Web Events”) shortly after the conclusion of the presentation, and the webcast will remain available until December 19th.