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Earnings Calls: 
McKesson Earnings Call, First Quarter 2009
Author: Godwin Gwetu
123jump.com
Last Update: 2:57 AM ET July 31 2008

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The healthcare services and information technology company reported first quarter revenues of $26.7 billion compared with $24.5 billion in the year ago quarter. The revenues were driven by solid growth in pharmaceutical direct distribution and services revenues in both the U.S. and Canada, and the acquisition of Oncology Therapeutics Network (OTN). The first quarter earnings per diluted share were 83 cents versus 77 cents per diluted share in the first quarter last year.


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Larry Marsh (Lehman Brothers): The share count in the quarter was 282 million but you had suggested that you were looking for a full year average of 281 million. Is that some of the impact of stock option overhang or there is something else that would cause the big drop sequentially? Is 281 million still the right number to use for the full year?

Jeffrey C. Campbell: 281 million is still the number I would guide you to for the year. There''s, of course, a number of factors going on here. We did repurchase shares at a little lower pace this quarter than we have been. On the other hand, that was a little offset by the fact that we had fewer option excises than we''ve been running lately.

Jeffrey C. Campbell: All of those things are contributing to what brought us to 282 million but for now I would say our guidance still remains the 281 million for the year.

Larry Marsh (Lehman Brothers): In terms of the tax reserve, you are pulling out in the September quarter $65 million. Could you elaborate about what that has been tied to and are there other reserve opportunities that you have in your book in the next few years?

Jeffrey C. Campbell: Under the new tax rules that went in to place last year, FIN 48, all companies have a little bit more disclosure that is forward-looking when it comes to tax reserves. When you go back to the 10-K we published a couple months ago, we have the required disclosure that says speculatively in the next year, you could have reserve releases up to a larger number. Our number is around $120 million.
At the time we provided guidance back in May, someone asked me about that and they said is any of that in your guidance? The answer was no because that disclosure is highly speculative because it still depends on exactly what happens in the future. As of today, we''re very confident that this $65 million will be appropriately accounted for in the September quarter and taken in as net income.
That''s why we are telling you about it and that''s why we are adjusting our guidance to reflect it. Anything else that is in there would still be pretty speculative. These have to do at all kinds of issues, we have lots of different taxing authorities all over the globe and we''re constantly in discussions.

Charles Rhyee (Oppenheimer & Company): Looking at the interest expense in the quarter and the quarter-ending debt, nothing has really changed from what was expected. What is your comment?

Jeffrey C. Campbell: The short-term borrowing that we do is very inexpensive because short-term rates are so low and so it is not going to really materially move the needle on that.

Lisa Gill (JP Morgan): Can you comment on price increases this quarter and what your expectations are over the next couple of quarters?

Jeffrey C. Campbell: Price increases in the June quarter were fairly robust. Our guidance for the year was based on an overall price increase assumption that price increases would be a little bit below the prior 12 months and moderate towards the levels that we saw in our fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2007.
We are only 90 days to 110 days into the year and so it is far too early for us to comment on what the whole year is going to look like. However, we are off to a solid start on the price increase side.

Barbara Ryan (Deutsche Bank): Could you tell us about the increase at your OneStop business during the quarter?

John H. Hammergren: That was up about 20% in the quarter which we think is obviously stronger than the market growth rate. It continues to show that we are getting more and more of our customers spend due to the program.

Ricky Goldwasser (UBS): In your guidance for the year, do you assume any energy cost is maintained at current level or are you looking for some relief later on in the year?

John H. Hammergren: First of all, energy cost in our business is a small amount of our total overall costs. We are doing anything we can do to reduce our energy costs through lighting an HSBC changes as well as transportation changes and we are also obviously trying where we can to pass along those costs to our customers. Our assumptions are that the energy costs will remain relatively where they are now. We do not have big assumptions about significant increases or significant decreases as we have set out our guidance for the year.

Ricky Goldwasser (UBS): On the pricing side, you talked about the fact that into guidance, you factored in some inflation in the year. Earlier in your prepared comments you said you are not changing your pricing assumption for the September quarter. What level of impact have you seen to-date in the quarter? Do you still expect pricing to be lower in the September 2008 versus where it was same period last year?

John H. Hammergren: I do not think we gave quarterly pricing guidance. The comment made earlier was that the full-year assumptions for price increases was unchanged from the guidance we gave at the start of the fiscal year and so our view has remained unchanged and our view is it will moderate somewhat from last fiscal year back to the 2006, 2007 kinds of levels.
However, it is early in the year to call any changes there. As to prices this quarter, once again it''s too early to tell but things are much on the plans than we expect them to be and we''re making progress. We have got three more quarters in this year and that is a lot of runway in front of us.

Jeffrey C. Campbell: The only directional comment I did make about the September quarter was just to say that when you think about the EPS split over the rest of the year, we would expect the September quarter to be flat to up slightly and then much stronger EPS growth as we get into the latter two quarters.

Richard Close (Jefferies): Concerning the direction on the earnings with the second quarter flat to up slightly, confirm that this is prior to the tax reserve?

Jeffrey C. Campbell: That is an excellent clarification.
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