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Business Description: Cochlear Limited (COH) is a manufacturer and distributor of cochlear implantable devices for the hearing impaired. With direct operations in more than 20 countries, COH distributes its products in Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe, Middle East and Africa. COH offers three main products namely: Cochlear Nucleus; Cochlear Baha; and Cochlear Hybrid.
Strategy Analysis: COH strategy is to maintain its market position as the clear leader in implantable hearing technology. COH has a reputation of delivering the most reliable and safest implantable device provides strong brand awareness with hearing specialists. Management will build on this credibility and its international distribution base to develop product awareness about the Baha device to the larger hearing impaired market. Less than 10% of the profoundly deaf have an implantable hearing device, management expect they can exploit the immaturity of the global market. COH is investing in research to redesign devices to enable manufacturing scale-up from a cottage industry to a production line. Management is also building the infrastructure to handle more revenue by investing in marketing and sales resources.
Cochlear reported NPAT of $77.67m for the half-year ended 31 December 2012. Revenues from ordinary activities were $391.7m, up 1% from the same period last year. Sales, excluding FX contracts, were $368.2m, up 5%. In constant currency (that is restating H1 F12 at H1 F13 FX rates), H1 F13 sales were up 9%. Diluted EPS was 136.1 cents compared to (35.8) cents last year. Net operating cash flow was $28.52m compared to $67.37m last year. The interim dividend declared was 125 cents compared with 120 cents last year. Net debt was $72.5m at 31 December 2012. At 31 December, the unused portion of the facility was $60.3m (June 2012, $128.0m).
The Age 18/05/2013 |
As Australia's major retailers increase their online sales channels, pouring millions into their websites, they could face new competition from China's booming e-commerce industry.
The Age 18/05/2013 |
Most of those who take a political approach to the budget assume that if it's in deficit, the way you get it back to surplus is to cut government spending or, if you're a really bad person, increase taxes. They forget it's the budget itself that's supposed to do the heavy lifting.
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