I thought it was a good report but if you had problems with IBM's reporting TMO isn't any better:
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
In addition to the financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EPS, adjusted operating income and adjusted operating margin, which exclude restructuring and other costs/income and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. Adjusted EPS also excludes certain other gains and losses, tax provisions/benefits related to the previous items, benefits from tax credit carryforwards, the impact of significant tax audits or events and discontinued operations. We exclude the above items because they are outside of our normal operations and/or, in certain cases, are difficult to forecast accurately for future periods. We also use a non-GAAP measure, free cash flow, which excludes operating cash flows from discontinued operations and deducts net capital expenditures. We believe that the use of non-GAAP measures helps investors to gain a better understanding of our core operating results and future prospects, consistent with how management measures and forecasts the company’s performance, especially when comparing such results to previous periods or forecasts.
For example:
We exclude costs and tax effects associated with restructuring activities, such as reducing overhead and consolidating facilities. We believe that the costs related to these restructuring activities are not indicative of our normal operating costs.
We exclude certain acquisition-related costs, including charges for the sale of inventories revalued at the date of acquisition and significant transaction costs. We exclude these costs because we do not believe they are indicative of our normal operating costs.
We exclude the expense and tax effects associated with the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets because a significant portion of the purchase price for acquisitions may be allocated to intangible assets that have lives of 5 to 20 years. Our adjusted EPS estimate for 2014 excludes approximately $2.25 of expense for the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, including Life Technologies as of an assumed close date. Exclusion of the amortization expense allows comparisons of operating results that are consistent over time for both our newly acquired and long-held businesses and with both acquisitive and non-acquisitive peer companies.
We also exclude certain gains/losses and related tax effects, benefits from tax credit carryforwards and the impact of significant tax audits or events (such as the one-time effect on deferred tax balances of enacted changes in tax rates), which are either isolated or cannot be expected to occur again with any regularity or predictability and that we believe are not indicative of our normal operating gains and losses. For example, we exclude gains/losses from items such as the sale of a business or real estate, gains or losses on significant litigation-related matters, gains on curtailments of pension plans, the early retirement of debt and discontinued operations.
We also report free cash flow, which is operating cash flow, net of capital expenditures, and also excludes operating cash flows from discontinued operations to provide a view of the continuing operations’ ability to generate cash for use in acquisitions and other investing and financing activities.
Thermo Fisher’s management uses these non-GAAP measures, in addition to GAAP financial measures, as the basis for measuring the company’s core operating performance and comparing such performance to that of prior periods and to the performance of our competitors. Such measures are also used by management in their financial and operating decision-making and for compensation purposes.
The non-GAAP financial measures of Thermo Fisher’s results of operations and cash flows included in this press release are not meant to be considered superior to or a substitute for Thermo Fisher’s results of operations prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are set forth in the accompanying tables. Thermo Fisher’s earnings guidance, however, is only provided on an adjusted basis. It is not feasible to provide GAAP EPS guidance because the items excluded, other than the amortization expense, are difficult to predict and estimate and are primarily dependent on future events, such as acquisitions and decisions concerning the location and timing of facility consolidations.