By Navya Mittal
(Reuters) – Shares in Cochlear 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)
