Friday, HMS Holdings Corp. (HMSY), a provider of cost management services for government-sponsored health and human services programs reported a rise in net income for the third quarter, helped by higher revenues.
Net income for the third quarter was $8.38 million or $0.30 per share, up from $6.14 million or $0.23 per share for the prior year period. On average, seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.28 per share for the quarter.
The New York-based company's quarterly revenue rose to $59.16 million from $48.96 million for the year-ago period. Four analysts expected revenues of $57.49 million for the quarter.
Total cost of services for the third quarter was $37.48 million, up from $32.40 million a year earlier mainly due to a rise in compensation expenses to $19.19 million from $15.86 million last year.
Selling, general and administrative expenses rose to $7.32 million from $5.79 million for the same period last year.
"We see broad opportunities in the marketplace, and continue to offer our clients unique program savings initiatives that will become even more critical as the nation seeks to finance the expansion of healthcare coverage," said Bill Lucia, Chief Executive Officer of HMS.
For the nine month period, net income was $20.72 million or $0.75 per share, up from $14.32 million or $0.53 per share for the same period last year and revenues rose to $162.92 million from $132.09 million a year earlier.
Looking forward for the full year 2009, the company raised its earnings per share guidance to $1.08 from its earlier guidance range of $1.05 and revenue expectations to $228.5 million from $222.0 million.
Looking further ahead for full year 2010, the company initiated guidance of earnings of $1.34 per share on revenues of $280.5 million.
Wall Street analysts currently expect the company to report earnings per share of $1.06 on revenues of $223.00 million for full year 2009 and earnings per share of $1.31 on revenues of $266.34 million for full year 2010.
Friday, HMSY closed at $42.93, up $1.94 or 4.73% on Nasdaq.
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