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KALAMAZOO, MI — Stryker Corp. is strong financially and is growing, its chairman and chief executive officer says.
“It is a good time to be at Stryker and a good time to be at Stryker in Kalamazoo,” Kevin A. Lobo said, following the medical technologies company’s 38th annual shareholders meeting Wednesday afternoon in Kalamazoo.
He told the stockholders that the Kalamazoo-based company is proud to have surpassed the $11 billion mark for sales last year. It reported $11.3 billion in net sales during 2016. And he said the company’s stock price grew by 28.9 percent during 2016 versus the 9.5 percent performance of others tracked by Standard and Poor’s.
“Stryker is a growing company,” he said. “We’ve continue to outpace the med-tech (medical technologies) market, growing at the high end of med-tech.”
Lobo’s comments to more than 250 company shareholders, executives and others Wednesday came eight days after its first-quarter release of sales and earnings The company’s numbers surpassed Wall Street expectations.
On April 25, the maker of powered surgical implements, hospital beds and replacement joints reported net earnings of $444 million for the period ended March 31. That was up 10.4 percent from $401 million during the same period a year ago. Net sales for the period were $2.96 billion, up 18.4 percent over first-quarter 2016.
Stryker reported net earnings of $1.19 per fully diluted share, up 9.3 percent from $1.07 a year ago. On an adjusted basis, that was per share earnings of $1.48, which exceeded a $1.43 consensus estimate by analysts.
Sales for its three business segments grew at rates of: 36.2 percent for Medical-Surgical; 7.4 percent for Orthopaedics; and 7.3 percent for Neurotechnology and Spine.
