Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Alere board OKs another $50M stock buyback

By Rodney H. Brown

Alere Inc. is taking another $50 million swipe at buying back its stock after the board of the Waltham company approved the measure. This follows a previous $50 million buyback plan approved in December.

All told, Alere’s board has given the approval for a total of up to $150 million in stock. According to a release, the $50 million buyback approved in December was completed in the first quarter of this year.

Alere (NYSE: ALR) is a health-care management company formerly known as Inverness Medical Innovations. Alere switched names from Inverness Medical in May of 2010, stemming from the 2007 acquisition by Inverness of Alere Medical Inc., of Reno, Nev., for $302 million in cash and stock.

In September, Alere bumped up a planned placement of senior subordinated notes to $400 million, from an initial goal of $350 million. The net proceeds from that offering were to be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Just last month, Alere reported it took a $1 billion hit in the fourth quarter of 2010 related to its Health Management business segment. In the documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Alere noted, however, that its Q4 revenue had climbed to $578.5 million from Q4 2009 numbers of $546.2 million. That was offset by the $1 billion loss that came as a result of a non-cash charge, which company officials said was related to “impairment of goodwill in our Health Management segment.” That $1 billion charge made up the bulk of Alere’s full-year loss of $1.04 billion. In 2009, Alere reported a yearly profit of $10.7 million.