Restructuring plan starts to pay off

Article Excerpt

BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC. $70 (New York symbol BAX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 544.8 million; Market cap: $38.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.7; Dividend yield: 0.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.baxter. com) makes a variety of medical devices, including intravenous pumps and kidney-dialysis equipment. Hospital products supply 65% of its revenue; the remaining 35% comes from renal (kidney disease) equipment. In 2015, the company began a multi-year restructuring plan, which includes job cuts and closing some facilities. The plan should cut $950 million from Baxter’s annual expenses. It expects to realize 85% of those savings by the end of 2018. It should see the remaining benefits by the end of 2020. Altogether, those savings boost the company’s forecast earnings per share from $2.72 in 2018 to between $3.25 and $3.40 a share for 2020. The stock trades at a reasonable 25.7 times that 2018 estimate. Baxter is a buy. buy…