Centene Beats Street 4Q Forecasts

ST LOUIS (AP) _ Centene Corp. (CNC) on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter net income of $230 million.

On a per-share basis, the St. Louis-based company said it had net income of $1.30. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 97 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 94 cents per share.

The healthcare company posted revenue of $12.81 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $12.26 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $828 million, or $4.69 per share. Revenue was reported as $48.38 billion.

Centene expects full-year earnings in the range of $6.95 to $7.35 per share, with revenue in the range of $60.6 billion to $61.4 billion.

Centene shares have fallen 1.5 percent since the beginning of the year. The stock has risen 54 percent in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CNC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CNC