Dallas, Texas 10/24/2013 (Financialstrend) – AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) is an S&P 500 index tracked major drug manufacturer with a market capitalization of $75.8 billion. In October Morgan Stanley conducted an academic exercise where it stack ranked publicly traded companies by their forward yield, payout ratios and consistent income growth. AbbVie Inc came in fourth on the list with dividend yield of 3.31%, dividend payout ratio of 61.3% and profit margins going up by 27.5% over the past 12 months.
This represents the strong operational and financial strength of this drug manufacturing behemoth. In the past one year it has posted sales of $18.7 billion with net income coming in at $5.16 billion. Its sales had seen a 4.4% increase compared to previous quarter.
In order to sustain this return in value to its share holders, the drug maker had announced in late September that it had tied up with a Belgian drug manufacturing firm Ablynx. In a collaboration valued at $840 million, AbbVie had licensed the smaller firms arthritis target drug “ALX-0061”. It has agreed to pay the smaller drug manufacturer $175 million at the outset and will pay a reminder $665 million in the form of milestone payments on reaching certain predicated goals over the next couple of years as the target drug winds its way through the clinical trial process.
At close of business on October 23, the stock price was hovering around the $48.33 per share mark. This represented a 1.37% decrease over its previous day close. At these present valuations, the stock is trading just 2% lower than its 52 week high valuation and well on its way to meet the analyst determined price target of $49.23 per share. The strength of the stock rally can be gauged by the fact that it is trading at 16% above its 200 day moving average.