Jefferies Initiates Coverage On ZOLL Medical Corp. With A Buy

ZOLL Medical Corp ZOLL has dramatically improved the growth and profitability profile of the company with several novel products targeting large markets. The core external defibrillator business has been pressured of late, but expectations are low and growth will be driven by newer product categories. Long thought of as an external defibrillator company, ZOLL has been retooling the company over the past several years. By broadening the continuum of resuscitation, ZOLL has created several fruitful pockets of growth that will likely drive very strong performance over the next several years. Jefferies pegs sales growth at 15-17% and EPS growth over 30% through 2013. The core at ZOLL is sales of external defibrillators to hospitals and EMS. These markets are subject to the vagaries of capital spending and government budgets and revenues of late have been under pressure. ZOLL is expanding into Japan, but the principal driver in these mature markets centers on product replacements and upgrades to current customers where demand remains lower than normal Jefferies rates the shares Buy with a $53 PT. ZOLL closed Monday at $38.35