Laureate Education Inc. Fourth-Quarter Profit Rises 39 Percent on Enrollment Jump.

Laureate Education Inc., which provides higher education through online and campus-based programs worldwide, said Monday its fourth-quarter profit rose 39 percent, driven by a surge in campus and online student enrollment.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2005, Laureate reported net income of $46.4 million, or 89 cents per share, versus a prior-year profit of $33.3 million, or 65 cents per share.

Stripping out items from discontinued operations, income from continuing operations totaled $47.6 million, or 91 cents per share, versus $47.2 million, or 92 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 32 percent to $277.8 million from $210.4 million a year ago.

Wall Street had forecast a profit of 92 cents per share, the average estimate of ten analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, on projected sales of $271.8 million.

Enrollment at Laureate’s online education segment increased 27 percent to 26,750 students. Walden University, its main online institution, reported enrollment jumped 41 percent to 20,493 students during the quarter.

For 2006, Laureate raised its earnings outlook by 5 cents to a range of $2.05 to $2.15 per share, excluding the impact of stock options expense. Analysts’ consensus view for 2006 is currently $2.07 per share, excluding stock-option costs.

Full-year revenue from campus-based and online businesses is expected to total between $1.08 to $1.15 billion.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 at 2:47 am and is filed under Education News. Tags: campus-based and online businesses, cents, Education News, Higher Education, Laureate Education Inc., main online institution, online and campus-based programs, Online Education, online education segment, online student enrollment, Profit Rises Laureate Education Inc, Student, Thomson Financial, Walden University, Wall Street, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.