Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, Novartis AG ADS (NVS)

Shares of Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) are lower in early morning trading after the company announced its fourth-quarter net profit fell by 45%, hurt by a restructuring charge and higher generic competition.

Novartis said net profit attributable to shareholders slipped to $904 million from $1.65 billion in the fourth quarter. Net profit from continuing operations also plunged 42% to $931 million from $1.6 billion in the same period of last year. The results were below analysts’ average estimate of a profit of $1.33 billion. Included in the company’s figures was a $444 million charge related to Novartis’s cost-savings program pressured earnings.

However, Novartis results weren’t really a surprise, as analysts had anticipated the fourth quarter would be weak for the drugmaker after the company announced in December that it would cut 2,500 jobs worldwide. Its decision came on worries over ongoing challenges from generics producers. Novartis declared that the job cuts brought the $444 million fourth-quarter charge, but it expects to save $1.6 billion in costs each year until 2010.

Continue reading Novartis (NVS) fourth-quarter profit plunges

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.