I have just started looking at Astrazeneca (AZN) as a possible candidate for an addition to Mel and I's portfolio. Have read the first 15 or so pages of their 2017 AR (the latest one available it seems). Out of all the ARs I looked at lately it is definitely one of the most interesting. In addition to 3 main medicinal areas:
* Oncology
* Respiratory
* Cardiovascular
upon skim reading up to pg 60 I have also uncovered their other interesting areas of research: autoimmunity, neuroscience and more; in which they are involved. Yes, it's clear that they are presenting themselves as a science led organisation, have many drugs in their portfolio, and have global reach. That aside, the report, and public info. does not hide the fact that revenues have been falling (why?) at least since 2015.
I have picked up a few actual sales figures from AZN page 135 of this and some estimates from 4-traders:
One of the things that I'm trying to get my head around is how 4-traders have obtained their estimates, and whether "the return to growth" goal set out in AR 2017 is happening, and whether it's sustainable.
I've just grabbed the latest results summary apparently issued this month (which I quote from pg 10 "product sales reached the inflection point" - good news, if it's true), and I'm not entirely clear on how to interpret them (why don't they state explicitly the exact timeframe in which sales occurred? Or perhaps it is implied?). So looking at the latest results on page 16, I can see:
YTD 2018 | Q3 2018
15673 | 5340
So how are we to turn the above latest figures, into a year's full figures indicative of growth? Firstly I assume I can multiply 5340 by 4 = 21360. That's short of the 4-traders estimates, but is an improvement on 2017 FY. Or do I assume the YTD 2018 figure means Q1,Q2,Q3, so multiply by 1.33 gives = 20845. Which also indicates a slight improvement......but is my logic well founded?
So my first question is, are AZN on track to recovery previous sales levels, and more importantly do my estimates from the latest results immediately above suggest that?
More to come, but please post any ideas, comments etc. about this company,
thanks Matt