Danaher Profit Slides on Currency Woes

   By Ezequiel Minaya 
 

Industrial conglomerate Danaher Corp. on Thursday posted earnings that dropped 13% as the company faced currency headwinds.

In the latest quarter ended Oct. 2, the Washington, D.C.-based company faced foreign exchange volatility that had a negative impact of 7% on the top line.

The company added that it expects upcoming fourth-quarter earnings to land between an adjusted $1.25 a share and $1.29 a share.

Overall, the company posted a profit of $590 million , or 85 cents a share, down from $681.3 million or 95 cents a share a year earlier. Excluding certain items, earnings on a per-share basis were $1.05.

Revenue climbed 6.7% to $5.02 billion.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters forecast per-share earnings at $1.04 cents a share on revenue of $5.06 billion.

In May, Danaher Corp said it had agreed to buy Pall Corp. for about $13.6 billion and unveiled plans to split itself into two separate companies.

Pall, based in Port Washington, N.Y., sells purification and filtration products to a wide range of customers including biopharmaceutical companies, airplane manufactures, brewers and municipal water suppliers. Including debt and net of acquired cash, the deal was valued at $13.8 billion.

The two resulting businesses would be a science and technology company, which would include Pall and an industry company.

The science business was slated to keep the Danaher name and include Danaher's life sciences and diagnostics and dental segments, as well as its water quality and product-identification platforms. The company hopes to complete the split around the end of 2016.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 22, 2015 07:03 ET (11:03 GMT)

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