LabCorp blames tough winter for quarterly drop

The rough U.S. winter apparently was very unkind to the lab services sector. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, a Burlington, N.C.-based provider of lab services, Monday joined another player in that space in blaming the winter weather for a quarterly drop in its business.

The company, also known as LabCorp, said its revenue fell less than 1% to $1.43 billion in the first quarter of 2014, compared to $1.44 billion in the first quarter of last year. Executives at LabCorp said they estimated that the bad winter weather reduced revenue by $42 million during the first quarter. Excluding weather, they said, the company would have reported 2% growth in the first quarter.

Net earnings dropped to $113.1 million in the first quarter of 2014, down about 23% compared with $147.2 million in the same quarter of 2013.

“We delivered a quarter with solid volume growth and strong earnings despite the greatest weather impact in our company's history,” said David King, LabCorp's chairman and CEO.

Last week, Quest Diagnostics, another provider of lab testing services, also attributed a decline in first-quarter profits to the harsh winter when it released its first-quarter earnings.

LabCorp continues to anticipate revenue growth of 2% in 2014.

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