AstraZeneca FY 22 – 09/02 –. back in November AstraZeneca raised its profit guidance for the year, as well as returning to profitability in Q3. Revenues for the quarter rose by 11% to $10.98bn, driving year to date revenues up to $33.14bn, with the addition of the Alexion business also helping to drive the improvement. Q3 profits came in at $1.67c a share with growth across all of its business areas helping to drive the improvements. Since then, AstraZeneca has managed to get EU approval for its Enhertu, Imfinzi and Lynparza combo drugs. Over the last three months the company has secured two separate deals to enhance its offering in the COPD space by securing a $402m deal with C4X Discovery to develop a treatment for COPD and other respiratory illnesses. AstraZeneca also signed a separate deal to acquire Neogene Therapeutics for $320m. Unlike C4X Discovery, Neogene is a biotech company which focuses on the discovery, development and manufacture of T-cell receptor therapies which target cancer cells specifically. In early January AstraZeneca shares hit record highs, but have since slipped back quite sharply on the back of some profit taking
Disney Q1 23 – 08/02 – Disney shares slipped to their lowest levels since March 2020 at the end of last year in the wake of their Q4 numbers back in November. Revenues came in short of expectations at $20.15bn, while profits came in at $0.30c a share, short of the $0.53c expected. The revenues number was well below Q3's $21.5bn which perhaps shouldn't be too surprising given that Q4 tends to see a drop-off anyway. The parks business in Q4 generated $7.43bn, a 36% increase on last year but below estimates of $7.59bn, with some of that shortfall probably due to the impact of Hurricane Ian which saw the parks take a $65m hit. On subscribers the picture was slightly better, adding 14.6m, 5m above forecasts with Disney+ the main driver, with 12.1m new adds, pushing the total to 164.2m subscribers. That still puts it behind Netflix, although when ESPN and Hulu are added to the numbers, they exceed Netflix. The streaming business is still very much a loss leader, losing $1.5bn during the quarter, with Disney saying it expects to be profitable by 2024. At some point this cash burn will need to subside with returning CEO Bob Iger set to draw a line under the Chapek era, with ongoing chatter that Iger will look at reorganising how the film and TV studios divisions will work in the wake of the Fox acquisition. Management is facing shareholder pressure, namely under the guise of Nelson Peltz to get a handle on costs.
