High debt load remains a risk factor

Article Excerpt

VIATRIS INC. $11 is a hold. The company (New York symbol VTRS; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing sector; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $13.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 4.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.viatris.com) merged its biosimilars drug business with India’s Biocon Biologics in 2022. Biosimilars are cheaper copies of complex biologic drugs. Viatris received $2.0 billion in cash plus $1.0 billion of Biocon convertible preferred shares. That cash helped it pay $427.4 million for eye treatment firms Oyster Point Pharma Inc. and $281 million for Famy Life Sciences. Viatris’s sales in the second quarter of 2024 fell 3.2%, to $3.79 billion from $3.91 billion a year earlier. On a comparable basis, sales improved 2%. Earnings before unusual items fell 8.0%, to $0.69 a share (or a total of $826.5 million) from $0.75 a share (or $905.4 million). The stock now trades at just 4.1 times the projected 2024 earnings of $2.68 a share; that reflects concern over Viatris’s long-term debt of $14.73 billion, which…