November 19, 2008 - Millipore Corp. (MIL-NYSE) is a life science company, providing technologies, tools, and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry. It operates in two segments, Bioprocess and Bioscience.

The Bioscience segment manufactures and sells instrumentation, consumable products, and services used in drug discovery and other laboratory applications. This segment serves biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical companies, contract drug manufacturers, diagnostics and medical device companies, beverage companies, and environmental testing companies.

The company sells its products through a direct sales force, Web site, and independent distributors. Millipore Corporation has strategic alliances/agreements primarily with Gen-Probe Incorporated, Novozymes A/S, Rohm and Haas, and Stem Cell Sciences. The company was founded in1954 and is headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts.

The company will report earnings this year of $3.55 a share, if analysts are correct in forecasting. That's up from $3.36 last year and marks the 7th consecutive year of increasing earnings. Next year, expect $3.85. Over the last 5 years, earnings had an average annual improvement of 14%. Over the next 5 years, analsyts predict 13.33% a year, on average. Not bad in an economy that's killing off large companies left and right.

Earnings are ramping faster than sales, always a good sign of efficiencies at work. In the first 9 months of this year, sales were up 7% while earnings increased by 11%. The sales improvement mostly came from favorable exchange rates, otherwise it would have been flat.

Sales are going higher in the Bioprocess group after several quarters of slowing, mostly due to U.S. biotech companies using their own raw material and finished drug inventories. Now that's done, and new orders are showing up, reversing the downward trend. September sales were still down when compared to last year, but they were ahead of the previous quarter.

The Bioscience division continues to show solid results, thanks to new products in the Laboratory Water business and better sales in the Drug Discovery segment.

To bolster efficiency, the company is closing certain manufacturing plants and increasing operational efforts over the next 2 years to achieve annual savings estimated at $13 million a year.

More numbers: Market Cap is $2.73 billion. Forward P/E is 12.9. Price to Book is 2.21. Operating margin for the last 12 months was 17.36% with a Profit margin of 9.79%. There's $23.12 million in cash or 42 cents a share. Total Debt is $1.12 billion. Current ratio is 2.64. Book Value per share is $22.98. The stock hit a 52 week high of $82.35 a share on November 30, 2007. It is now trading at its new 52 week low. There are 55.23 million shares outstanding with a float of 54.35 million. Insiders own 8.94% of the stock. There is no dividend.

While earnings have climbed ever higher, the stock is well off its highs. Don't expect any startling catalyst to boost this stock, shooting it upward quickly. That isn't likely to happen. But with steady, solid, diversified earnings, this stock should continue its upward trek once the market in general stabilizes and/or heads higher.

- Company Web site: www.millipore.com

- Ted Allrich