Full-year profit at Centene Corp. is expected to top previous estimates, the Medicaid managed-care insurer said late Tuesday.
St. Louis-based Centene had expected earnings per share, minus expenses associated with its pending Health Net acquisition, would fall between $2.90 and $2.94 for 2015. That figure is now likely to be around $3.03, Centene said in the preliminary filing. The company, which mostly works with state Medicaid agencies on managed-care contracts, did not provide estimates for total net income.
Centene's total revenue will be about $22.8 billion, $6.3 billion of which came in the fourth quarter. This year, Centene expects revenue will almost double to $42 billion after absorbing Health Net.
Centene has not received full approval yet for the Health Net deal, but it's expected to close as early as next week or sometime soon thereafter, the company said. Centene has planned a $2.3 billion offering to help pay for the transaction.
Less certainty exists around the cost of Centene's potential data breach. The company recently disclosed that six computer hard drives containing the medical information of 950,000 people are missing.
Centene said Tuesday it can't estimate the full cost of a potential breach, but it “does not expect the impact of the incident to have a material effect on its future growth opportunities, financial position, cash flow or results of operations.” Fellow insurer Anthem had the records of approximately 80 million former and current members hacked around this time last year, and it still hasn't provided a financial impact of that cyberattack.
Centene will release full fourth-quarter and year-end results on Feb. 9.
