Danaher Reaffirms 2013 Guidance And Initiates 2014 Outlook

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahead of an institutional investor and analyst meeting to be held in New York, Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR) reaffirmed the Company's adjusted diluted net earnings per share guidance of $0.91 to $0.96 for the fourth quarter 2013 and $3.37 to $3.42 for the full year 2013. Both the fourth quarter and full year guidance exclude the gain from the sale of certain marketable equity securities in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Company anticipates that 2014 GAAP diluted net earnings per share will be in the range of $3.60 to $3.75. The 2014 earnings per share guidance assumes 2014 core revenue growth of between 2% and 4%.

H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Our new product development and go-to-market investments are driving relative outperformance in many of our businesses today. Led by the Danaher Business System, we believe our continued investment in our growth spending and productivity and efficiency initiatives, and significant acquisition capacity position us well for 2014."

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 63,000 associates around the world, serving customers in more than 125 countries.  In 2012, we generated $18.3 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 release 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 net earnings per share for the third quarter and full year 2013, anticipated GAAP diluted net earnings per share for 2014, anticipated 2014 core revenue growth, investments in new product development and  go-to-market, productivity initiatives, relative outperformance, acquisition posture, positioning for 2014 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, deterioration of or instability 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, the potential for improper conduct by our employees, agents or business partners, our ability to successfully identify, consummate and integrate appropriate acquisitions, contingent liabilities relating to acquisitions and divestures, 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, risks relating to potential impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets, currency exchange rates, tax audits and changes in our tax rate and income tax liabilities, litigation and other contingent liabilities including intellectual property and environmental, health and safety matters, risks relating to product defects and recalls, risks relating to product manufacturing, the impact of our debt obligations on our operations, our relationships with and the performance of our channel partners, commodity costs and surcharges, our ability to adjust purchases and  manufacturing capacity to reflect market conditions, labor matters,  international economic, political, legal and business factors, disruptions relating to man-made and natural disasters, security breaches or other disruptions of our information technology systems and pension plan costs.  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 2012 Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2013. 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 measure of adjusted diluted net earnings per which refers to GAAP diluted net earnings per share excluding the items identified in the reconciliation schedule above.  This non-GAAP measure should be considered in addition to, and not as a replacement for or superior to, GAAP diluted net earnings per share, and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

Management believes that this measure provides 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 this measure 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