Australia's Cochlear hits 3-month high on strong annual earnings

Cochlear

15/08/2023 04:54

By Navya Mittal
       Aug 15 (Reuters) - Shares in Cochlear  COH.AX  hit a
more than three-month high on Tuesday after the Australian
hearing implant maker posted a 4% jump in full-year profit as a
pandemic-fuelled backlog of surgeries cleared during the year.
    Cochlear, whose shares are the second-most expensive in
Australia, climbed as much as 7.9% to A$251.6 after it reported
a statutory net profit of A$300.6 million ($194.97 million) for
the year ended June 30, slightly above A$289.1 million a year
earlier. 
    Clinical capacity constraints due to the pandemic, which
collapsed the healthcare systems globally, stabilized during the
first half and much of the remaining COVID-19 related surgical
backlog cleared during the fiscal 2023.  
    "We assume Oticon's cochlear implants business will not
contribute to earnings initially as it is currently loss-making,
but will gradually improve upon different ownership," Analysts
at Morgan Stanley said in a note. 
     The company expects the strong earnings momentum to
continue in fiscal 2024, with underlying net profit to be in the
range of A$355-A$375 million. 
    But this guidance does not factor in any impact from the
proposed acquisition of Oticon Medica, which the Britain
competition regulator in April said could harm the market. 

($1 = 1.5418 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Navya Mittal in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi
Aich)
 ((Navya.Mittal@thomsonreuters.com;))