Fortrea Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:FTRE), a leading global contract research organization (“CRO”), stock rose 6.54% (As on August 13, 11:22:23 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company posted mixed result for the second quarter of FY 24. The company has have increased its focus as an innovative, global pure-play clinical services organization. The company have now exited 60 percent of the Transition Services Agreement and are making good progress on the most difficult part, the IT systems, and managing the related one-time costs. Book-to-bill ratio of 0.96x, resulting in 1.16x book-to-bill for the trailing 12 months. The company has completed divestiture of assets relating to the Endpoint Clinical and Patient Access businesses. There is debt paydown of $504 million in the quarter using initial divestiture and securitization proceeds.

Further, Second quarter GAAP net loss was $(99.3) million and diluted loss per share was $(1.11) compared to second quarter of 2023 GAAP net income of $25.0 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.28. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $55.2 million, compared to second quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA of $71.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially by 103.7% in the quarter. Backlog as of June 30, 2024, was $7.366 billion, and the book-to-bill ratio for the quarter was 0.96x. The Company’s cash and cash equivalents were $126.2 million, and gross debt was $1,142.0 million on June 30, 2024. Operating cash flow for the six months ended June 30, 2024, was $248.1 million, and free cash flow was $227.6 million.

FTRE in the second quarter of FY 24 has reported the adjusted loss per share of 3 cents, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted loss per share of 7 cents, according to the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company had reported the adjusted revenue of $662.4 million in the second quarter of FY 24, missing the analysts’ estimates for revenue by 3.45%.

For the full year 2024, the Company is revising its revenue guidance to a range of $2,700 million to $2,750 million and adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $220 million to $240 million. The reduction in revenue is primarily due to lower pass-through revenues and, to a lesser extent, lower service-fee revenues in the second half as a result of lower net new business in the first half of 2024. The update to the adjusted EBITDA range is driven by the lower service-fee revenues.