Danaher Reaffirms 2011 Guidance and Initiates 2012 Outlook

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahead of an institutional investor and analyst meeting to be held in New York, Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR) reaffirmed the Company's fourth quarter 2011 adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance of $0.75 - $0.80. The fourth quarter guidance includes $0.74 - $0.79 of earnings per share from continuing operations and $0.01 of earnings per share from discontinued operations relating to the recently announced pending divestitures of the Company's Kollmorgen Electro-Optical and Accu-Sort Systems Inc. businesses.

The company anticipates that 2012 GAAP diluted earnings per share from continuing operations will be in the range of $3.20 to $3.35.  The 2012 earnings per share guidance assumes core revenue growth from continuing operations of between 2% and 5%.  

H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We remain mindful that the recent macroeconomic headlines will likely make for a more challenging environment as we go forward.   Our focus on capturing market share and accelerating cost actions, coupled with the Danaher Business System, positions us well to drive mid-to-high teens earnings per share growth in 2012."

Danaher is a science and technology leader that designs, manufactures, and markets innovative products and services to professional, medical, industrial, and commercial customers.  Our premier brands are among the most highly recognized in each of the markets we serve.  The Danaher Business System provides a foundation to our 59,000 associates around the world, serving customers in more than 125 countries.  In 2010, we generated $12.8 billion of revenue.  For more information please visit our website: www.danaher.com.

In addition to the financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), this earnings announcement also contains non-GAAP financial measures. The reasons why we believe these measures provide useful information to investors, a reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and other information relating to these measures are included in the supplemental reconciliation schedule attached.

Statements in this release that are not strictly historical, including the statements regarding the Company's anticipated adjusted diluted earnings per share performance for the fourth quarter of 2011 and anticipated GAAP diluted earnings per share from continuing operations performance for 2012, the Company's anticipated core revenues for 2012, the anticipated divestitures of the Kollmorgen Electro-Optical and Accu-Sort Systems Inc. businesses, the general economic environment, the Company's focus on capturing market share and anticipated cost reduction efforts, the Company's positioning and expectations for the balance of 2011 and future periods and any other statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future, are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.   There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results, developments and business decisions to differ materially from those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. These factors include, among other things, uncertainty in the economy and financial markets, the impact of our restructuring activities on our ability to grow, contractions or growth rates and cyclicality of markets we serve, competition, our ability to develop and successfully market new products and technologies and expand into new markets, our ability to successfully identify, consummate and integrate appropriate acquisitions (including our acquisition of Beckman Coulter, Inc. and our ability to effectively integrate the business and realize the anticipated benefits from the acquisition), contingent liabilities relating to acquisitions (including our acquisition of Beckman Coulter), risks relating to potential impairment of goodwill and other long-lived assets, currency exchange rates, our compliance with applicable laws and regulations (including regulations relating to medical devices and the healthcare industry) and changes in applicable laws and regulations, our ability to effectively address cost reduction and other changes in the healthcare industry, tax audits and changes in our tax rate and income tax liabilities, litigation and other contingent liabilities including intellectual property and environmental matters, risks relating to product defects and recalls, the impact of our debt obligations on our operations, pension plan costs, commodity costs and surcharges, our ability to adjust purchases and  manufacturing capacity to reflect market conditions, labor matters, our relationships with and the performance of our channel partners, risks relating to man-made and natural disasters, our ability to achieve projected cost reductions and growth, and international economic, political, legal and business factors.  Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in our SEC filings, including our 2010 Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2011. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise.

Adjusted Diluted Net Earnings Per Share

We disclose the non-GAAP measures of adjusted diluted net earnings per share (and adjusted diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations), which refers to GAAP diluted net earnings per share (and diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations) excluding the items identified in the reconciliation schedule above.  These non-GAAP measure should be considered in addition to, and not as a replacement for or superior to, GAAP diluted net earnings per share or GAAP diluted net earnings per share from continuing operations, and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

Management believes that these measures provide useful information to investors by reflecting additional ways of viewing aspects of Danaher's operations that, when reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measure, helps our investors to better understand the long-term profitability trends of our business, and facilitates easier comparisons of our profitability to prior and future periods and to our peers.  The items described above have been excluded from these measures because items of this nature and/or size occur with inconsistent frequency, occur for reasons that may be unrelated to Danaher's commercial performance during the period and/or we believe are not indicative of Danaher's ongoing operating costs or gains in a given period, which we believe may obscure underlying business trends and make comparisons of long-term performance difficult. 

The Company estimates the tax effect of the items identified in the reconciliation schedule above by applying the Company's overall estimated effective tax rate to the pre-tax amount, unless the nature of the item and/or the tax jurisdiction in which the item has been recorded requires application of a specific tax rate or tax treatment, in which case the tax effect of such item is estimated by applying such specific tax rate or tax treatment.

SOURCE Danaher Corporation