Lower blood plasma collection volumes meant CSL
(ASX:CSL) had a 6% fall in full-year profit, but a bumper year for the Seqirus flu vaccine business pushed revenues higher for the year to June.
Net income fell to $US2.24 billion ($A3.2 billion) in the year to June 30, which was at the higher end of its forecasts but down on the $US2.38 billion profit it made in 2020-21.
Sales rose 4% to $US10.7 billion on a constant currency basis.
CSL said it will pay a final dividend of $US1.18 a share, keeping the full-year payout steady at $US2.22. CSL said converted to Australian currency, the total full year dividend is approximately A$3.11 per share, up 6%.
All this was well guided to by CSL and as a result the shares only dipped 1.3% to $292.11 on Wednesday.
The Covid lockdowns and epidemics and arguments over US border controls mean CSL’s collections of human blood plasma from donor centres (many migrants are donors at these centres and are paid) across the US proved harder to get in the June year.
CSL refines the blood plasma into a suite of therapy treatments and the shortage of collections throughout the pandemic is now flowing through to sales of these medicines, with revenues from Ig (immunoglobulin) products down 3% for the year.
CSL CEO Paul Perreault said plasma collections have now bounced back but the collection costs have risen as the company works hard to coax donors back into its centres, luring them with fees for their plasma.
“Collections were up 24 per cent, which we expect will underpin strong sales growth in our core plasma products, Ig and albumin,” Mr Perreault said on Wednesday.
“Having said that, the pandemic has put us two years behind projected growth in plasma collections — which is suboptimal for patient care.”
After the company experienced a forecast June half year, the CSL CEO said its full-year profits were at the upper end of its forecast range.
Mr Perreault said CSL is expecting to see a return to profit growth in 2020-23, forecasting earnings in the range $US2.4 billion to $US2.5 billion for the year to next June.
This excludes projected earnings and costs from the CSL’s recent $A10 billion acquisition of Vifor, which closed last week.
CSL has said that it will update its forecasts to include its new business on October 17 after it has looked at the books of its latest acquisition.
