Smith & Nephew slumps on Chinese weakness

Smith & Nephew (LON:SN ) stock slumped Thursday after the UK-based medical equipment manufacturer slashed its full-year revenue guidance, citing weakness in the important Chinese market.

At 06:40 ET (10:40 GMT), S&N stock fell over 12% to £9.59, the largest one-day percentage fall since October 1987. 

The FTSE 100-listed company now expects underlying revenue growth for 2024 of around 4.5% instead of in between 5.0% and 6.0%. 

It has also heavily revised its full-year profit margin growth target for 2024, anticipating trading profit margin growth of up to 0.5% from last year's 17.5%, having previously forecast a margin of at least 18%. 

For the three months ended Sept. 30 revenue rose to $1.41 billion from $1.36 billion, representing an underlying and reported growth of 4%. Excluding China, group growth was 5.9%.

Chief executive Deepak Nath said: “While the revised outlook reflects the challenges we continue to face across our surgical businesses in China, we remain convinced that our transformation will position us as a higher growth company, with the ability to drive operating leverage through to the bottom line over time.”

 

Source: Investing.com