AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $41 - New York symbol A

AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $41 (New York symbol A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 336.0 million; Market cap: $13.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 1.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.agilent.com) has completed its plan to split into two publicly traded companies.

One firm kept the Agilent name and stock symbol and focuses on testing equipment for medical research labs. It gets 70% of its revenue from overseas.

The second company, called Keysight Technologies (see right), makes testing systems for electronics.

Under the spinoff, Agilent shareholders received one Keysight share for every two shares they held.

Excluding spinoff-related costs, Agilent earned $139 million in its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended January 31, 2015. That’s down 0.7% from $140 million a year ago. Per-share earnings were unchanged at $0.41.

Revenue gained 1.8%, to $1.03 billion from $1.01 billion. Equipment orders rose 1.6%, to $995 million from $979 million.

Agilent’s balance sheet is strong: its long-term debt of $1.7 billion is a low 12% of its market cap. It also holds cash of $2.1 billion, or $6.30 a share.

The company expects to earn $1.67 to $1.73 a share in fiscal 2015. The stock trades at 24.1 times the midpoint of that range. That’s reasonable in light of Agi- lent’s high research spending (8.6% of revenue in the latest quarter) and strong reputation. As well, rising concern over the quality of food and water, particularly in developing nations, should spur demand for its products. The $0.40 dividend yields 1.0%.

Agilent is a buy.

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