Good First Quarter For Hafslund Nycomed

Pretax profits in the first quarter of 1995 at Norwegian company Hafslund Nycomed amounted to 456 million Norwegian kroner ($73 million), 51% ahead of the like, year-earlier period and well up on expectations. Operating profits before R&D costs were 774 million kroner, up 48.8%. There was an increase of 42.1% in earnings per share to 3.07 kroner in the first quarter, and revenues grew 45.2% to 2.4 billion kroner.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs have raised their rating of the company's shares to market outperformer from market performer. They see Hafslund's key dynamic as being the underlying imaging sales growth, which they expect to advance 4%-6%, having previously forecast 2%-4%.

Nycomed Imaging had operating profits of 607 million kroner, up 65.8% in the first quarter of 1995. Imaging revenues were 1.3 billion kroner, more than double revenues in the like, year-earlier period. Both results were higher than analysts' expectations.