Tuesday February 17, 10:29 PM
UPDATE 1-Australia's CSL raises year profit forecast
MELBOURNE, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Australian blood products group CSL Ltd beat market forecasts with a 44 percent rise in first-half profit on strong sales of higher priced products and a weaker Australian dollar, and raised its full year forecast.
The company has so far been immune to the global financial crisis but warned that cuts to government health care spending, customers not paying bills, currency swings and access to long-term debt could affect its outlook.
'However in this difficult economic environment, we anticipate broadly stable market conditions for CSL's group of businesses,' Managing Director Brian McNamee said in a statement.
CSL is set to overtake Baxter International Inc as the world's top maker of plasma products if U.S. anti-trust authorities approve its $3.1 billion takeover of North Carolina-based Talecris.
It said it was working with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to win approval. If CSR fails to gain approval by August, it may have to pay Talecris's private equity owners, Cerberus Partners and Tribeca Investment Partners, a $75 million break fee.
CSL raised its full-year profit forecast by around 7 percent to expect a net profit of between A$1.02 billion ($651 million) and A$1.06 billion, largely due to currency gains.
It said it expected the result to be toward the high end of its forecast, despite an increase in research and development spending and lower forecasts for royalties on the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine, which it licensed to Merck (MKGAY.PK - news) .
Net profit rose to A$502 million in for the July-December period from A$348.7 million a year earlier. That was ahead of six analysts' forecasts for around A$486 million.
Sales grew 19 percent in U.S. dollar terms in the group's biggest division, CSL Behring, bolstered by a new, higher-priced but more convenient formulation of intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), used to treat patients with immune deficiencies.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul, editing by James Thornhill)
($1=1.566 Australian Dollar) Keywords: CSL/
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