Cigna’s stock falls despite Q4 results beat

Cigna Corporation (CI) topped market expectations on revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter of 2018. Despite the beat, the stock fell 3% in premarket hours on Friday.

Total revenues grew 34% to $14.3 billion from the same period last year. Adjusted revenues totaled $13.7 billion.

Shareholders’ net income dropped 46% to $144 million, or $0.55 per share, from the prior-year quarter, hurt by higher amortization costs and investment losses. Adjusted income from operations was $647 million or $2.46 per share.

Cigna completed the Express Scripts transaction in December. As of December 31, 2018, the company had 16,961 total medical customers and 164,614 total customer relationships.

In Integrated Medical, adjusted revenues grew 13% year-over-year helped by growth in commercial customers, higher premiums and an expansion of specialty relationships. The Health Services business benefited from contributions from the company’s mail order pharmacy operations and Express Scripts.

Also see: Cigna Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Adjusted revenues in International Markets grew 7% helped by growth in business but results in the Group Disability segment were hurt by unfavorable disability claims.

For the full year of 2019, adjusted revenues are expected to grow to a range between $131.5 billion and $133.5 billion as the company serves over 160 million customer relationships. Adjusted income from operations is expected to be $6.2 billion to $6.4 billion, or $16.00 per share to $16.50 per share, representing a per share growth of 13-16%.

Cigna expects medical care ratio to range between 80.5% and 81.5% and medical cost trend to range between 3.5% and 4.5% for 2019.

Get access to timely and accurate verbatim transcripts that are published within hours of the event.