ICON plc (ICLR) Proves FY19 EPS and Revenues Guidance

ICON plc (NASDAQ: ICLR) today announced its financial guidance for the year ended December 31, 2019. For the full year 2019 revenue is expected to be in the range of $2,735 - $2,835 million, representing growth of 5.2 – 9.0% and earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $6.69 - $6.89, representing growth of 10.6 – 13.9%.

CEO Steve Cutler commented “We expect 2019 to be another robust year of revenue and earnings progression for ICON. Supported by a positive business win trend of a trailing twelve month book to bill of 1.28x, we expect revenue to grow by 5.2 – 9.0% to a range of $2,735 - $2,835 million. Furthermore, through our continued focus on efficiency and leveraging our global support infrastructure, we expect earnings per share to increase by 10.6 – 13.9% to a range of $6.69 - $6.89. In addition to this organic growth, we feel we have the strongest balance sheet in the industry and will continue to focus on deploying capital to maximise shareholder value through a combination of M&A and share repurchases.”

The full year 2019 financial guidance assumes:

• US dollar to Euro exchange rate of $1.16.
• An effective tax rate of circa 12%.
• Circa $300 million of free cash flow and capital expenditures of circa $55 million.
• Share repurchases of up to 1 million shares to be executed opportunistically during 2019 depending on cash commitments to support M&A pipeline, no additional earnings benefit included in guidance.

With respect to 2018, the company reaffirmed its current guidance of revenue in the range of $2,560 – $2,640 million and earnings in the range of $5.98 - $6.12.

In addition, the company repurchased $72 million worth of shares in Q4 2018.

ICON will be presenting at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference on January 8th at 7:30am PT (10:30am EST, 3:30pm Ireland & UK). This presentation and follow-on Q&A can be accessed live from the ICON website at http://investor.iconplc.com. A recording will also be available on the website following the call.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Intuitive Surgiical (ISRG) beats earnings, revenue expectations in Q1
• Glacier Bancorp (GBCI) Misses Q1 EPS by 3c
• Google (GOOGL) Makes Structural Changes to AI Teams to Quicken Progress: CEO