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4
ABBOTT 2013 ANNUAL REPORT
ABBOTT 2013 ANNUAL REPORT
LETTER TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS
Abbott is the world leader in immunoassay diagnostics
and blood screening; the global leader in adult nutritional
products, and the U.S. leader in pediatric nutritionals;
we’re the world leader in LASIK devices, in drug-eluting
and bare-metal stents; and we originated the new category
of bioresorbable vascular scaolds, in which we continue
to have the world’s leading product.
In 2013 we were again recognized as our industry’s
best deal maker, as a top employer, and as one of the
world’s best corporate citizens. And our broad and deep
research and development capability allows us to deliver
advancements across the spectrum of innovation, from
breakthrough technologies to packaging improvements.
In other words, our company continues to not just
maintain its excellence, but to advance standards across its
operations. We have a very strong base on which to build
our future.
PERFORMANCE
For the full-year 2013, we delivered solid growth in sales,
earnings and earnings per share over 2012. At the same
time, we returned nearly $2.5 billion to shareholders in the
form of dividends and share repurchases, and announced a
57 percent increase in our dividend beginning this year.
Strong performance across many of our businesses,
combined with gross and operating margin expansion,
enabled us to deliver on our 2013 expectations despite
some challenges.
At the same time, we executed on our strategic priorities,
delivering or exceeding operational sales growth
expectations across many of our businesses; completing
acquisitions that brought us important, best-in-class
new technologies in our endovascular and vision care
businesses; launching numerous new products across our
portfolio, including our MitraClip structural heart device
in the U.S., multiple innovations in our cataract business
that are driving share gains, and some 60 launches in
Nutrition; and achieving significant operating margin
expansion in Nutrition and Diagnostics.
AIMING HIGHER
While today’s Abbott is very much the company you’ve
known in terms of its well established strengths, we’re
a very new one in terms of the opportunities before us,
the ways we’re adjusting and fine-tuning our operations,
and, perhaps most importantly, in a heightened sense of
aspiration for our future. This will be embodied by the
new corporate brand we will launch this year as we build
a powerful corporate identity in keeping with our position
as a long-term global healthcare leader, firmly focused on a
great future.
The essence of our business has been the same since
Dr. Abbott began it: We achieve our potential as a company
by helping people achieve their potential as individuals.
And we believe that potential is unlimited. Our goal is
to build the best Abbott yet. Given our distinguished
125-year legacy, that’s a high ambition, indeed; but, with
the excellence of our opportunities and our capabilities,
it’s one well within our reach.
“We achieve our potential
as a company by helping
people achieve their
potential as individuals.”
Miles D. White
Chairman of the Board
and Chief Executive Ocer
March 3, 2014