Quintiles, the world’s largest life science services company, beat Wall Street earnings estimates by a penny in quarterly financials announced early Wednesday.
But the stronger U.S. dollar took a sizable chunk out of Quintiles’ (NYSE: Q) revenue.
“$59.0 million compared to the same period last year,” the company said of what is called “currency headwinds.”
The Durham-based company also is buying back $300 million of its own shares. It is planning as well to refinance debt.
Briefing.com reported that Quintiles; earnings beat analysts’ estimates by 1 cent with revenues virtually as expected.
Earnings hit 72 cents per share. Analysts polled by Capital IQ expected 71 cents.
Revenues, meanwhile, rose 2.5 percent over the same quarter a year ago to $1.03 billion vs.,expectations of $1.04 billion.
The company is forecasting revenue growth for the year to be between 7-8 percent.
Quintiles shares closed at $69.31, up 41 cents, on Tuesday.
“We are pleased with our results for the first quarter,” said Quintiles Chief Executive Officer Tom Pike in a statement. “Quintiles’ first-quarter service revenue growth was 8.4% at constant currency. We delivered a greater revenue contribution from our IHS business which experienced service revenue growth of 29.3% at constant currency.
“As expected, our Product Development segment started the year slower; however, we believe this segment will accelerate in the second half of the year on the back of our more than $11 billion industry-leading backlog.”
