Shares of Beckman Coulter Inc. fell about 15% early Friday after the maker of medical testing and research gear reported disappointing results.
Fullerton-based Beckman’s second-quarter profit fell 18% from a year earlier to $47.7 million, well short of what analysts had expected. They were looking for $56.9 million in June quarter.
This marks the second quarter in a row that Beckman has missed analysts’ profit expectations.
Second-quarter sales were up 3.6% to $619 million, but still below Wall Street’s target of $641 million.
Beckman said it plans to cut 350 jobs as part of a restructuring.
The company plans to combine its dominant clinical diagnostics business and its smaller biomedical research unit into one. Beckman expects to take a charge of up to $60 million in the second half.
In a release, Chief Executive Scott Garrett said sales were disappointing because of a slowdown in domestic laboratory automation purchasing decisions and an increase in the percentage of its instruments placed on operating-type leases, where revenue’s spread over the life of an instrument.
Beckman Coulter also sharply scaled down its 2005 earnings guidance to $157.7 million to $179.4 million, before special items. That’s down from previous guidance of $217.1 million to $223.2 million.
The company projected full-year sales of $2.41 billion to $2.46 billion.
