Alere Sees Wider Loss From Cont. Ops, Lower Revenue In Q4 - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Alere Inc. (ALR) announced certain preliminary unaudited financial information for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, as well as the first quarter of 2017 ended March 31, 2017.

The company expects wider loss from continuing operations and lower revenue for both the fourth quarter and fiscal 2016, compared to the respective year-ago periods.

The company also provided an update on its expected filing of its 2016 Annual Report on Form 10-K and filed its preliminary proxy statement with respect to its pending merger with Abbott Laboratories.

For the fourth quarter of 2016, the company expects total revenue to be $597 million, which would be a decrease from $617 million in the prior-year period. Loss from continuing operations during the is expected to be $117 million or $1.41 per share, compared to loss of $21.81 million or $0.31 per share in the year-ago quarter.

For full year 2016, the company projects revenue of $2.38 billion, down from $2.45 billion in full year 2015. Reported loss from continuing operations is expected to be $140 million or $1.86 per share, compared to loss of $15.45 million or $0.43 per share last year.

For the first quarter of 2017, Alere forecast total revenue of $588 million.

As previously disclosed, Alere was delayed in filing its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 due to its review of certain revenue transactions in the company's South Korea and Japan locations. Based on this review, the company determined that it had incorrectly recorded certain revenue transactions at its Standard Diagnostics subsidiary in South Korea.

The company is also in the process of reviewing sales transactions to a limited number of distributors from select selling entities during fiscal years 2012 to 2016 to determine if revenue recognition timing was appropriate according to U.S. GAAP with respect to collectability being reasonably assured at the time of sale.

This review relates to the timing of the recognition of the revenue and not to the existence or measurement of revenue for these transactions and the selling entities being reviewed have historical collection rates in excess of 99.5%.

Alere intends to complete its review and file its 2016 Annual Report on Form 10-K by no later than June 15, 2017.