Mentor Hopes to Smooth Some Wrinkles

In uncertainty, there can be profit. Whether that will be the case with Mentor (NYSE: MNT) remains to be seen as it sells off a big chunk of its business and attempts to refocus itself moving into its new fiscal year.

If one includes the discontinued operations, Mentor beat revenue estimates for both its fourth quarter and the fiscal year. Unfortunately, it missed on earnings estimates. But then, analysts making estimates were on their own, since Mentor withdrew earnings guidance last year. They're on their own this year, too, since management refused to give any specific numbers on earnings guidance, despite repeated questions during Monday's conference call.

The company is selling two of its three segments, Surgical Urology and Consumer Healthcare, to Coloplast A/S, based in Denmark, and Mentor expects to gain $340 million, net of taxes, when the deal closes. These two segments together accounted for 47% of fiscal 2006 revenue, but when you discover that they contributed only 23% of net income, you can see that Aesthetic Medicine, the third remaining segment, has a higher margin. And that's why management is focusing on it. Even so, in 2006, its portion of net income grew only 12% year over year, compared with 18% growth for Urology and Healthcare.

Besides the normal stress and uncertainty when a company changes focus by selling off 47% of its revenue sources, Mentor also faces continued uncertainty over final approval from the Food and Drug Administration of its new silicone breast implant premarket application (PMA). While management stated satisfaction with the progress of discussions between Mentor and the FDA, it gave no guidance as to when those talks might finish.

A further reason for uncertainty is the execution of its strategy to focus exclusively on Aesthetic Medicine. The vast majority of the company's remaining revenue and income currently comes from breast implants; most of the rest is from body contouring and liposuction. Realizing that those products won't support the company exclusively, management has spent heavily to expand its newer dermatology segment, an effort that has included expanding the sales force and beginning the marketing and distribution of NIA 24, a line of skin rejuvenation products. Mentor will also be looking at acquisition possibilities to build out the product offering. Unfortunately, its hyaluronic acid dermal filler product, Puragen Plus, meant to compete with Medicis Pharmaceutical's (NYSE: MRX) Restylane, ran into some problems in phase 2 trials in the third quarter, thereby delaying plans for filing its own premarket application with the FDA.

The company also recorded charges of $4.5 million related to the divestiture of the Urology and Healthcare business segments and $100,000 related to an unsuccessful bid to buy Medicis in an effort to build up the dermatology side.

With more than 11 million surgical and nonsurgical aesthetic procedures performed in 2005 in the United States alone at a cost of $12.4 billion, the market here is, to put it mildly, large. And Mentor is positioning itself to become a bigger player. At the moment, it currently competes in liposuction and breast augmentation, the top two surgical procedures, and it's already in, or will be entering, two of the top three nonsurgical procedures -- botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid dermal filler.

These are unsettled times as Mentor settles down to its reduced business and moves to grow it. In uncertainty, there can indeed be profit. Just tread warily, oh Fool.

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Fool contributor Jim Mueller likes to think he is aging gracefully, with his graying hair and laugh lines. He does not own shares in any company mentioned. The Fool is investors writing for investors.