Mission Viejo nursing home operator Ensign Group Inc. saw its shares rise a day after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ projections and issuing a forecast that topped what Wall Street had been expecting.
Ensign shares closed up 14% Thursday to a market value of about $630 million.
The surge came on the heels of results released late Wednesday.
The nursing home operator posted a fourth-quarter profit of $11.7 million, up 34% from a year earlier.
Analysts expected Ensign to make $9.8 million in the quarter.
Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $172.8 million, up 18% from a year earlier.
Wall Street expected Ensign’s revenue to come in at $165.6 million.
For 2011, Ensign expects a profit of $46.7 million to $48.8 million on revenue of $740 million to $756 million.
That topped the $44.1 million profit on revenue of $697.6 million that analysts had been expecting.
Ensign owns 85 facilities in California and six other states. It’s part of a nursing home crop in Orange County that includes Sun Healthcare Group Inc. of Irvine and Foothill Ranch-based Skilled Healthcare Group Inc.
