(RTTNews) - Cardinal Health, Inc. (CAH: News ) reported Thursday a loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2010, compared to prior year's profit, reflecting higher charges mainly related to its spinoff of CareFusion Corp. (CFN: News ). On an adjusted basis, the Dublin, Ohio-based healthcare products and services company's earnings grew 15% from last year on higher segmental revenues. Cardinal Health's spun off unit, CareFusion, also reported a decline in first-quarter profit, while adjusted earnings grew 71%. Further, Cardinal Health said it now sees higher end of fiscal 2010 adjusted earnings forecast range, while CareFusion lifted its full-year earnings forecast.

Cardinal Health's first-quarter net loss was $38.2 million or $0.11 per share, compared to net earnings of $249.1 million or $0.69 per share last year.

The latest quarter results included earnings from discontinued operations of $23.6 million or $0.06 per share, lower than prior year's earnings of $76.9 million or $0.21 per share. The discontinued operations reflected the recent spun off of CareFusion through a pro rata distribution to Cardinal Health shareholders of approximately 81% of the shares of CareFusion common stock, effectively launching it as an independent, publicly traded company.

On a continuing operations basis, loss for the quarter was $61.8 million or $0.17 per share, compared to income of $172.2 million or $0.48 per share in the same quarter last year.

The company pointed out that the net impact from costs associated with the spinoff of CareFusion totaled $0.71 per share, comprising restructuring and employee severance costs of $42.3 million or $0.12 per share, impairments and loss on sale of assets of $15.5 million or $0.04 per share, and other spin-off costs of $198.2 million or $0.55 per share.

Excluding items, non-GAAP earnings from continuing operations rose to $194 million or $0.54 per share from $168 million or $0.47 per share in the year-ago quarter.
On average, 14 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.43 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Provision for income taxes for the quarter was $236.8 million, sharply higher than prior year's provision of $82.6 million.

Earnings for the quarter, before income taxes and discontinued operations, declined to $175.0 million from $254.8 million a year ago.

Quarterly revenues grew 6% to $24.78 billion from $23.44 billion in the same quarter last year. Thirteen analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $24.04 billion for the quarter.

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