Rick Gonzalez
Analyst · Mizuho
Vamil this is Rick. I mean, I'll take those two questions. Let me do the second one, because it will be shorter first. So we don't see any changes in the assumptions we're making from the standpoint of the growth of the dividend based on everything that we have analyzed and I would say the robust performance of our business going into the COVID crisis and how we view the COVID crisis being a transient situation that, although difficult to predict exactly when all the geographies will reach some level of normalcy, we know that will occur at some point. And so we don't view any significant change there. On the value of the Allergan transaction, I would tell you that we don't see any change, fundamental change in the long-term value of the transaction. The benefits that we were trying to derive by acquiring the Allergan business are the same. And the long-term valuation I believe is the same. Now I think what some of the investors are probably concerned about is, obviously, the esthetics business is an important franchise as I indicated before represents about one-third of the revenues and about one-third of the profits. And it's an attractive franchise. And so I think the question that investors have, is how is it going to recover? And how long will it take to recover? And I think look those are reasonable questions. And as you can probably imagine, we have been doing a tremendous amount of work to try to evaluate not only the impact of COVID on our business, but also the impact of COVID on the Allergan business. And specifically I'd say, we've spent a considerable amount of time looking at the esthetics business. So I'm going to take a couple of minutes here and walk you through what that data looks like, so that you have a good perspective of at least the data that we're operating against to make the assumptions that we're making. Now what I am going to say is because of the Irish takeover code, we can't talk about the specific financials of Allergan until they are public and they're not public right now. So I'm not going to talk about their financial performance in any way. But I think, I can give you a pretty good characterization as to the work that we've done here and the conclusions that we've drawn. So I think if you step back and you look at the situation, it is clearly a situation, one, it's a complex situation. And two it's not a situation that any of us have ever experienced before meaning that this has both an economic disruption factor built in and it has a supply and demand disruption factor that's built in. We've certainly seen economic impacts on this business before and we know how it behaved in those circumstances. So as we try to approach understanding what the recovery will likely look like, we've essentially looked at four fundamental issues. Number one is, are there any analogs that would tell us what that recovery curve's going to look like? Number two, what is it going to be -- what is it going to take in order for the supply side? And when I say supply side what I mean is plastic surgeons, med spas, dermatology offices, which are the primary providers of those procedures. What is it going to take for the supply side to get back to where it was? And then number two -- or number three rather, what is going to be necessary on the demand side? And demand, I mean, consumer’s users of these procedures. And then finally, will there be a change in the situation from a competitive standpoint? Those are the four fundamentals that we looked at. We've looked at this both in conjunction with Allergan and we also have done an independent analysis with the same consulting firm that we used when we were considering acquiring the Allergan business. So we did two independent work streams to come to our conclusions. So let me start with the analogs. There are two right? There is the 2008, 2009 recession. And as I've said in my comments, there we saw a very sharp D-shaped recovery. And in fact the business recovered and actually grew faster on the other side of that The second analog is China. China has reopened most of its geographies not all, but most and they've been open for approximately seven or eight weeks now. If we look at the data from China what it says is 86% of the clinics have reopened. Patient traffic is back to about 55%. Volume is just under 50%, like 45% to 48%, slightly lower because those clinics are also burning off some of their inventory. So it doesn't outdate. So, I'd say the two analogs that we came up with looked pretty encouraging. Now let's look at the supply side. So, on the supply side, what we're trying to understand here is, what is the intent? And what is the preparation for these offices to reopen? And I think there's a couple of important facts here that help support and guide us to what that might look like. First the major medical societies like the plastic surgery society, the aesthetic society and others have now issued guidelines to these practices on the procedures that they should use to restart. And they include things like temperature checks, masks, gloves, face shields, lower densities in their offices. So why is that important? Well, why that's important is, this gives those offices a guideline as to how they should reopen. And probably more importantly, it gives them confidence on how they should reopen. Allergan has worked with their customers. A number of their customers, a large percentage of their customers requested the U.S. government stimulus funds. And so what we do know is that a significant portion of those practices should be in a position where financially they can reopen fairly quickly. And finally, Allergan has done a number of surveys with a large group of customers that show that the demand to reopen upon lifting of the stay-at-home orders and implementation of these patient safety guidelines is very high. And we anticipate that they will start reopening in May, and that's what our data told us, and the survey data told us. I'd say if anything, it seems to be moving faster than what we originally anticipated, because some states in the U.S. have opened up more quickly. So, then the next question is the demand side, what's that going to look like? And here I'd say, again, Allergan did some very good work. If you look at the brilliant distinctions database, which has about two million active members, represents about 70% of Allergan's users, it shows that 70% of the growing distinction consumers have household incomes of greater than $100,000, and 50% have incomes -- household incomes of greater than $150,000 a year, and it shows that 60% of those consumers work for corporations not small businesses. Allergan also conducted a recent user survey that had just under 450 consumers that they interviewed. And it showed that 80% of the consumers said that the COVID crisis would have no or little impact on their household incomes. 94% of those consumers said, they would reschedule an appointment for procedures in the next 90 days, and two-thirds of them said upon restrictions being lifted they with schedule an appointment in 30 days. So now you turn to the competitive environment. Allergan competes mostly against smaller less financially strong companies. I'd also say that, Allergan has done an excellent job. I give a tremendous amount of credit to Carrie Strom and Bill Meury. They responded quickly and aggressively to this crisis with their customers. They extended payment terms. They converted credits to checks to help with cash flow at these offices. They protected the customers' volume discounts. They facilitated online sales of Allergan skin medical products, again to get those offices some cash flow. And they changed the product return policy so the customers are protected from any product outdating. I'd also say from a competitive standpoint, Allergan didn't have any layoffs. They maintained or accelerated their R&D programs. And you have to remember Allergan has the largest commercial footprint by a significant margin compared to anyone else in this business. So what the data tells me is this, the analog show the business bounces back and it's resilient. The supply side should ramp quickly when the environment allows. Consumers have a strong desire to restart treatments, and they have the financial capacity to do so. And I think Allergan did a nice job of creating loyalty with these practices, and should come out of this in a very strong competitive position, maybe even stronger than they were before. The independent analysis that we did also surveyed customers and providers. And I would say, it looks very similar to what the Allergan analysis looks like. So, look, we can't predict is exactly how long it will take in every state and in every country around the world, but I think we can predict with a pretty high degree of certainty that the business will bounce back. So, those are some of the keys that I think make us feel confident in the valuation.