The Healius Ltd (former Primary Health Care) (ASX: HLS) share price is up 5.4% to $2.98 today after the healthcare provider posted a net profit of $93.2 million on revenue of $1,804 million for the year ending June 30, 2019. The underlying profit and revenue are up 5.9% and 6.5% respectively on the prior corresponding period.
CEO Dr Malcolm Parmenter said: "The increasingly positive momentum across all divisions is an encouraging validation of our strategy to refresh and renew our Medical Centres and invest in leading‐edge infrastructure and emerging businesses. Pathology delivered a very strong result in the second half and Imaging recorded its third year of strong increases."
Over the period net debt fell from $777 million to $678 million with free cash flow of $76 million. Given the balance sheet and need to invest the final dividend fell to 3.4 cents to take full year dividends to 7.2 cents plus full franking credits. Underlying earnings per share came in at 15.4 cents to put the stock on 19x FY 2019's earnings at $2.98 this afternoon.
Other stocks in the healthcare sector performing well include Cochlear Ltd (ASX: COH) and CSL Limited (ASX: CSL).
