Danaher Corp (NYSE:DHR) stock fell 2.14% (As on October 23, 11:22:14 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company posted better than expected results for the third quarter of FY 24. Revenues from the Life Sciences segment totaled $1.78 billion, up 4.5% year over year. Core sales fell 2% year over year. Adjusted operating profit of the segment was $404 million, down 3.1% year over year.  Revenues from the Diagnostics segment totaled $2.36 billion, up 5% year over year. Core sales increased 5% year over year. Adjusted operating profit was $664 million, up 12.9% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues from the Biotechnology segment totaled $1.65 billion, down 0.5% year over year. Core sales remained flat year over year. Adjusted operating profit of the segment was $608 million, down 3.6% year over year.

Moreover, in the third quarter, Danaher’s cost of sales increased 2% year over year to $2.4 billion. Gross profit of $3.4 billion increased 3.8% year over year. The gross margin was 58.7% compared with 58.2% in the year-ago quarter. Danaher’s operating profit decreased 19.2% year over year to $958 million. Operating margin contracted to 16.5% from 21.1% in the year-ago quarter. Exiting the third quarter, DHR had cash and equivalents of $2.6 billion compared with $5.9 billion in 2023-end. Long-term debt was $16.3 billion at the end of the quarter compared with $16.7 billion at the end of December 2023.
Danaher generated net cash of $4.7 billion from operating activities in the first nine months of 2024 compared with $5.5 billion in the previous year’s comparable period. Capital expenditures totaled $876 million in the same period, down 7.7% year over year. Adjusted free cash flow declined 4% year over year to $3.81 billion in the first nine months of 2024.

DHR in the third quarter of FY 24 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $1.71, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $1.56, according to the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of 3 percent to $5.8 billion in the third quarter of FY 24, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $5.59 billion.

For the fourth quarter, Danaher expects adjusted core sales from continuing operations to decline in low-single digits on a year-over-year basis. The same is also anticipated to decrease in low-single digits on a year-over-year basis in 2024.