Quintiles Transitional Holdings Inc. (Q) Issues FY17 Earnings Guidance

Quintiles Transitional Holdings Inc. (NYSE:Q) updated its FY17 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided EPS guidance of $4.50-4.65 for the period, compared to the Thomson Reuters consensus EPS estimate of $4.54. The company issued revenue guidance of $8.00-8.10 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $8.02 billion.Quintiles Transitional Holdings also updated its Q3 guidance to $1.10-1.15 EPS.

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $101.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 27th. William Blair upgraded shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and boosted their target price for the company from $70.10 to $93.42 in a research report on Friday. Barclays PLC boosted their target price on shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings from $98.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday. Citigroup Inc. reiterated a neutral rating and set a $96.00 target price (up previously from $87.00) on shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings in a research report on Wednesday, June 28th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and boosted their target price for the company from $76.00 to $93.00 in a research report on Friday, July 7th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. The company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $88.64.

Quintiles Transitional Holdings Inc. (Q) traded down 0.75% during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $90.42. 1,263,883 shares of the stock traded hands. The firm has a market cap of $19.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 200.04 and a beta of 0.64. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $89.50 and its 200 day moving average is $82.85. Quintiles Transitional Holdings Inc. has a 52-week low of $70.10 and a 52-week high of $93.53.

Quintiles Transitional Holdings (NYSE:Q) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 3rd. The medical research company reported $1.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.05 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $1.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.96 billion. Quintiles Transitional Holdings had a return on equity of 18.03% and a net margin of 1.06%. Quintiles Transitional Holdings’s quarterly revenue was up 68.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.93 EPS. Equities analysts predict that Quintiles Transitional Holdings Inc. will post $4.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Quintiles Transitional Holdings declared that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, May 24th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the medical research company to buy up to 5.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

In other news, major shareholder Cpp Investment Board Private H sold 7,131,165 shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.01, for a total value of $599,089,171.65. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Dennis B. Ph D. Gillings sold 860,000 shares of Quintiles Transitional Holdings stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.01, for a total value of $72,248,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 10,002,230 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $840,287,342.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 8,758,400 shares of company stock valued at $735,783,985. 6.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Quintiles Transitional Holdings

Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc, formerly Quintiles Transnational Holdings Inc, provides integrated information and technology-enabled healthcare services. The Company operates through segments, including Commercial Solutions; Research & Development Solutions, and Integrated Engagement Services. The Commercial Solutions segment offerings include national information offerings, sub-national information offerings, technology solutions, and workflow analytics and consulting services.