BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC. $71 - New York symbol BAX

BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC. $71 (New York symbol BAX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 542.0 million; Market cap: $38.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 2.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.baxter.com) makes medical products, such as intravenous pumps and kidney dialysis equipment. It also produces vaccines and drugs.

The company has agreed to pay $4.0 billion for Gambro AB, a privately held Swedish company that makes dialysis products. It should complete the purchase in the next few weeks. If you exclude acquisition- related costs and other unusual items, Baxter would have earned $581 million in the quarter ended March 31, 2013. That’s up 2.1% from $569 million a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, pershare earnings rose 4.0%, to $1.05 from $1.01. Sales rose 1.8%, to $3.45 billion from $3.39 billion.

The company spent $246 million (or 7.1% of its sales) on research in the latest quarter. That’s down 8.6% from $269 million (or 7.9% of sales) a year earlier. Baxter recently teamed up with another firm to develop certain products, which lowered its research costs.

The company will probably earn $4.66 a share in 2013, including $0.10 to $0.15 a share from Gambro. The stock trades at 15.2 times that forecast.

Baxter also raised its quarterly dividend by 8.9%, to $0.49 a share from $0.45. The new annual rate of $1.96 yields 2.8%.

Baxter is a buy.

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