Ranjit Thomas

Cooper Companies: In-line for '08, Positioned for Asian Growth

Perhaps you didn't notice that the co. used an unusually low tax rate of 4% in their proforma figures for this quarter to arrive at a 67c profit. Using a normal 20% tax rate, EPS would have been 55c - a big miss from the 65c expectation. The company's earnings quality is poor with constant proforma exclusions for restructuring costs and the like. In fact, free cash flow over the last twelve months has been negative.