Operator
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Owens & Minor First Quarter 2016 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Candace and I will be your operator for today. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference call. As a reminder this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Miss Trudi Allcott. Please go ahead. Truitt Allcott - Director-Investor & Media Relations: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Owens & Minor First Quarter 2016 Earnings Call. I'm Trudi Allcott, and on behalf of the team, I'd like to read a Safe Harbor statement before we begin. Our comments today will be focused on financial results for the first quarter 2016 which are included in our press release. In our discussion today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information about these measures and reconciliations to GAAP financial measures included in our press release and in the supplemental information posted on our website. In the course of our discussion today we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please see our press release and our SEC filings for a full discussion of these risk factors. Participating on our call this morning are Cody Phipps, our President and CEO; Randy Meier, EVP and Chief Financial Officer and President of International; and Nick Pace, our General Counsel. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Cody Phipps who will start things off this morning. Cody? Paul Cody Phipps - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Trudi, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. This morning I will provide a progress report on our transformation initiatives, as well as an update on the business. Then Randy will provide more detail on first quarter results and the performance of our three business segments. But first let me address the loss of a significant customer. As we recently announced, we were disappointed to learn that a major domestic customer has decided not to renew its contract with us. We have served them for approximately 15 years, so this was difficult news for everyone on our team. However, our task now is to focus on the future and position our company for sustained profitable growth. We believe that our ability to reduce complexity and eliminate waste in the healthcare system is resonating with our customers. As evidence, let's turn to the first quarter results. We were pleased with consolidated revenue growth of 2.7% and strong adjusted EPS of $0.50. As you saw in our press release we have moved to a three-segment reporting structure: Domestic, International and Clinical and Procedural Solutions. We believe that this new reporting structure reflects how we are managing our business and allows us to enhance our execution focus. For the quarter we reported solid performance across all three segments. As for our transformation agenda, we continued making solid progress on the four key elements of our agenda. Let me expand on this. We continue to build and align the senior leadership team with the addition of Rony Kordahi, our new EVP of North American Operations. Rony comes to us from United Technologies and he brings more than 25 years of operations leadership experience to the table. A talented leader, Rony is already contributing his considerable energy and innovation to our efforts. Rony will lead our initiatives to drive continuous operations improvement. We're also bringing on an experienced executive to lead the Global CPS segment. We should be in a position to announce this new leader very soon. With the second initiative of our transformation agenda, strengthening our Domestic Services business, we made solid progress both on the commercial and operational fronts which contributed to positive first quarter results. On the operations front we launched a regional realignment plan during the quarter that will streamline operations in the field. We also concluded the voluntary employee separation program and targeted staff reductions which will streamline our cost structure and enable us to bring new talent on board. Our strategic supply management initiative is also underway and our indirect sourcing efforts led to cost reductions during the quarter. With every step we take we are simplifying the organization, improving our cost structure and achieving continuous operations improvement. On the commercial front, while the loss of our large customer has likely captured your attention, I am pleased to report that we have just renewed agreements with several large provider customers. We are also making progress with manufacturers by offering them value-added services that improve their ability to connect their products to the point of care. Our message of attacking complexity for both providers and manufacturers is resonating. As for the third element of our transformation agenda, enhancing the execution of our current growth strategies, I was pleased to see that the International and CPS business segments made steady progress against their goals. Our European team continues to control costs and develop their pipeline of new business, and during the quarter we signed a significant new CPS contract, reflecting the value of our offering, which is quickly becoming one of our signature services for reducing complexity. As you will hear from Randy, we continue to see opportunity for growth in both of these business segments. The final element in our transformation agenda is focused on developing future strategies for long-term success. During the quarter, we launched the strategic planning initiative that will continue throughout the year. Our leadership team is energized and excited about driving our future strategy for sustained profitable growth. In summary, we are pleased with our first quarter results and the execution toward our goals. We made meaningful progress on our transformation agenda, adding new talent and executing on key initiatives, and finally, our focus on attacking complexity in the large health systems is resonating and our value proposition for both providers and manufacturers is gaining momentum. Delivering against our 2016 goals remains our highest priority. Thank you, and now Randy will provide a review of our financial results as well as an update on our CPS and International operations. Randy? Richard A. Meier - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Cody, and good morning, everyone. As Cody said, we have made good progress this year in implementing our key initiatives of our transformation agenda. With the help of our leadership and teams across the enterprise, we continued to make meaningful steps to position the company for sustained profitable growth. I'll start this morning with an update on our consolidated results for the first quarter of 2016, and then give some insight into each of the three segments. Please keep in mind that the adjustments made in our reported results are outlined in our press release. For the first quarter, we are pleased that we achieved adjusted EPS of $0.50. Our results demonstrate that our teams are performing across the board and that our transformation agenda is helping to position the company for the future. Consolidated revenues for the first quarter increased 2.7% to $2.46 billion compared to last year's first quarter. The improvement in the revenues resulted from strong Domestic segment performance as well as one extra selling day compared to last year. On a same-day basis, revenues improved 1.1%. Adjusted consolidated operating earnings improved $4.6 million to $55.5 million, representing solid performance across our segments. Our adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 35.8% compared to 38.8% for the same period last year, as income continues to improve in our lower tax jurisdictions. Consolidated asset management metrics included DSO of 21.8 days versus 21 days last year. Consolidated inventory turns were 9.3 compared to 9.4 in 2015. Operating cash flow for the quarter was nearly $45 million compared to $169 million last year. As you may recall, much of last year's performance was related to working capital timing differences. The $45 million represents a more normalized cash flow result. Turning to the bottom line, for the quarter, adjusted net income was $31.3 million, or $0.50 per diluted share, an increase of $0.06, or 14%, over last year. The increase was driven by improved operating performance in each of the company's segments. Beginning this quarter, we have introduced a three-segment reporting structure, reflecting how we are managing the business: the Domestic segment, consisting of the company's U.S. distribution, logistics and value-added services; the International segment, consisting of the company's European distribution, logistics and value-added services; and the Clinical and Procedural Solutions, or CPS segment, which consists of our product-related solutions, including surgical and procedural kitting, as well as sourcing. Our prior year results have been recast on this basis. In looking at the segments, Domestic segment revenues for the quarter increased 3.2% to $2.32 billion. Revenue growth came primarily from our large healthcare provider customers, as well as from one additional selling day in the quarter. First quarter Domestic operating earnings were $41.7 million, improved $3.6 million over last year. The improvement resulted primarily from revenue growth, manufacturer product price changes, and expense control. Turning to the International segment, quarterly International segment revenues decreased $12 million to $83.6 million. Excluding the previously discussed exit of a U.K. customer last year and the negative impact of foreign currency, revenues declined $4.3 million for the quarter. Due to improved performance in the U.K. and profitable results across the network, the International segment had positive operating earnings of $1.1 million. That's an increase of $1.5 million over the prior-year quarter. The team in Europe has made progress in stabilizing the business, and are now focused on developing the pipeline, on-boarding new customers, expanding the platform capabilities and controlling costs. As for the CPS segment, revenues in the first quarter were $141 million. Increased sales of custom procedure trays and tighter alignment with our domestic and international sales efforts led to the $11.7 million improvement in revenues. Operating earnings for CPS were $13.3 million, a slight improvement over the year before. In reflecting on the quarter, we have retained a significant amount of business, and secured new business across all three segments. Our teams, Domestic, International, and CPS, are actively developing new avenues for growth, and we have made good progress across all the transformational agenda initiatives. All of this culminated in a strong result in the quarter and positioned us to meet our expectations for the year. And finally, let's address the impact of the previously announced customer exit. At present, we estimate the direct impact on an annualized basis to be in the range of $0.20 to $0.25 per share. This estimate does not include opportunities we are pursuing for new and incremental business to offset this loss; however, given the scale and complexity of this relationship, we believe we'll be managing this customer relationship through much of 2016. Therefore, we continue to believe the majority of this impact will occur in 2017. At this point, based on the solid performance in the first quarter, our confidence in contributions from the transformation agenda, and our track record in managing changes in our customer base, we remain comfortable on our financial outlook for 2016 of adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.00 to $2.05. Thank you, and with that, we will turn it over to the operator for questions.