Spectranetics posts Q3 loss

Spectranetics Corp. blamed $3.13 million in one-time costs for losses totaling $2.49 million, or 8 cents a share, in the third quarter. Those costs included nearly $1.7 million related to a federal investigation into the company and related lawsuits.

The Colorado Springs-based medical laser manufacturer also reported $1.08 million in writeoffs from ending the smallest of three product lines it acquired in May 2008 from Kensey Nash Corp. and $366,000 in costs from a management restructuring that eliminated eight jobs, including the vice president of the company’s vascular inventions unit. Revenue rose 7.5 percent during the same period to $28.8 million; Spectranetics earned $183,000, or 1 cent a share, a year ago.

Spectranetics lost $7.63 million, or 24 cents a share, in the first nine months of the year, or more than 2½ times the $2.86 million, or 9 cents a share, it lost in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the nine-month period was up 10.1 percent to $85.2 million. The company raised its forecast for revenue from lasers used to remove infected pacemaker leads, which should more than offset cutting its revenue forecast for the largest part of its business.

The third-quarter loss was twice the amount in the consensus forecast of 11 analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, while the company’s revenue total beat the consensus forecast by nearly $500,000. As a result, the company’s stock fell 34 cents, or 5.4 percent, to $5.95 in trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Tht erased most of a 27-cent gain on Monday after analyst Thomas Kouchoukos of Stifel Nicholaus & Co. Inc. upgraded the stock to “buy” from “hold.”
—
Contact the writer at 636-0234