GSK GSK plc

By Ian Walker

GlaxoSmithKline PLC on Wednesday reported a market-beating net profit for the second quarter of the year after booking a profit on the sale of its Horlicks business and other consumer healthcare brands, and backed its full-year forecast.

The British pharmaceutical giant made a net profit for the quarter ended June 30 of 2.26 billion pounds ($2.92 billion) compared with GBP964 million for the same period last year, and a consensus of GBP1.12 billion taken from FactSet and based on three analysts' forecasts.

Adjusted earnings per share--a metric closely watched by analysts that strips out one-off items--fell 38% when accounting for currency effects, to 19.20 pence from 30.5 pence, missing analysts' expectations of 19.63 pence, taken from FactSet and based on nine forecasts.

Sales fell to GBP7.62 billion from GBP7.81 billion, missing a consensus forecast of GBP7.69 billion provided by FactSet.

Looking ahead, the FTSE 100-listed company reiterated that it expects adjusted EPS to decline by between 1% and 4% at constant rates in 2020.

Glaxo has declared a dividend of 19 pence for the quarter and said it expects the payout to remain unchanged at 80 pence a share for the year.

Earlier Wednesday Glaxo and French peer Sanofi S.A. said that they had reached an agreement with the U.K. government to supply up to 60 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, subject to final contract.

Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 29, 2020 07:36 ET (11:36 GMT)

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