Quest Diagnostics Profit Falls 11% on NID Closure

Quest Diagnostics Inc. reported a second quarter profit loss of 11% on costs related to discontinued operations at its test kit manufacturing subsidiary, NID.
    Second-quarter net income was $132 million, compared with $149 million a year earlier. The results include pretax charges of $28 million related to winding down the NID manufacturing unit. Second-quarter revenue rose 15 percent versus the year-earlier quarter to $1.6 billion. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $1.58 billion, according to Reuters estimates.
    Operating income was $263 million compared with $261 million in 2005. Operating income as a percentage of revenue compared with the prior year was reduced by approximately 1.6%, hurt by the performance of the NID test kit unit.
    For the full year 2006, Lyndhurst, NJ-based Quest sees revenue growth of about 15%. It expects the NID unit to generate pretax losses of $60 million to $68 million.