Health and Healthcare

Can Boston Scientific Keep Its Turnaround Gains Going?

The turnaround for medical devices maker, Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE: BSX), has finally turned. Its shares were among the best performing S&P 500 Index stocks so far in 2015. With its shares up over 36% so far this year, its stock is up almost 50% in the past six months, and it has more than doubled from two years ago. The question to ask is whether this turnaround can keep turning around.

Merrill Lynch believes that this turnaround is actually in full swing at this time, with a pending acquisition of a unit of Endo. 24/7 Wall St. first noted this turnaround success when Boston Scientific announced its third-quarter earnings last fall.

Overall, this turnaround from Boston Scientific has been in the works for some time. After the stock went over $12 last fall, it has not looked back. The gains in the stock since have been in a four-step wave of higher and pausing in a step-up manner, but the stock just has refused to sell off. Now the stock is at the highest price since the start of 2007.

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Boston Scientific’s big fall took place from 2004 to 2008. It simply got too ambitious in its acquisition of Guidant. Now the newer management team is moving beyond the past, and this stock does not need to get back into the $30s or $40s for the current turnaround efforts to be considered a success.

Merrill Lynch called a strong fourth quarter for Boston Scientific when it reiterated a Buy rating and raised its price target to $18, tying the highest listed analyst price target. As a result, the firm raised its estimate of 2016 earnings per share (EPS) to $1.05 but left the 2015 EPS estimate intact.

Earlier in March, Boston Scientific announced that it entered into a definitive agreement with Endo International PLC (NASDAQ: ENDP) to acquire its American Medical Systems urology portfolio. The deal calls for $1.6 billion in upfront cash, with the potential for an additional $50 million milestone based on 2016 sales. The Guidant acquisition should not be as large of a concern as it was 10-times the size of the current deal.

Merrill Lynch views this deal as accretive to both earnings and returns, while better positioning Boston Scientific’s urology division. The brokerage firm noted that it had increased confidence in Boston Scientific’s pipeline, and it believes the company can grow revenue in the range of 4% to 5% going forward.

One key point Merrill Lynch brought up from an earnings perspective was:

Our confidence in the top line and our ongoing margin diligence also suggests the BSX operating margin story is real (as has been well documented BSX’s margins are 500-1000 basis points below peers), which suggests BSX can be a solid 11-14% EPS grower for the next several years. We think a positive risk reward exists as the margin story plays out.

As long as Boston Scientific can keep to its plan of having 25% operating margins by 2017, its stock should continue to push higher, according to analysts. Also the buyback plan that is currently in place has aided in the turnaround as well, but this share buyback appears to be on hold while it looks to fund the Endo unit acquisition.

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In terms of the company’s valuation, it has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of roughly 20 times its 2015 earnings. EPS were $0.84 in 2014, and the consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are $0.91 EPS in 2015 and $1.03 EPS in 2016. That earnings growth is based on an expectation of only 1% revenue growth in 2015 and 5% in 2016.

The company’s shares were up just over 34.5% so far in 2015.

Midday Monday, shares of Boston Scientific were up 0.9% to $17.97, in a 52-week trading range of $11.10 to $18.17. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $18.71, with a $21.00 street-high price target.

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