Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Owens & Minor first quarter 2017 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Trudi Allcott. Ma'am, you may begin. Truitt Allcott - Owens & Minor, Inc.: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Owens & Minor First Quarter 2017 Earnings Call. I'm Trudi Allcott, and on behalf of the team, I'd like to read the Safe Harbor statement before we begin. Our comments today will be focused on financial results for the first quarter 2017, 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 the most comparable GAAP financial measures are 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, who will provide an overview of the business and the new strategy; and Randy Meier, EVP and Chief Financial Officer and President, International, who will give an update on our results and insight into the performance of our three segments. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Cody Phipps, our President and CEO, who will start things off this morning. Cody? Paul Cody Phipps - Owens & Minor, Inc.: Thank you, Trudi, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. I'm sure you saw our news last night that we have signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Byram Healthcare for approximately $380 million in cash. We are pleased with this transaction and look forward to working through the final closing conditions. Byram will give us immediate entry into the direct-to-patient non-acute care market, and it represents a significant step forward for our strategy to expand our services along the continuum of care. Byram is a national market leader in the direct-to-patient home health market, and has unique product specialization and expertise. With a seasoned management team and an experienced sales force, Byram has nationwide coverage and strong access to managed care contracts. Today, they have leading positions in the diabetes, urology, wound care, ostomy, breast pumps and incontinence product markets. Byram is well positioned to grow with a strategic focus on managed care customers and attractive product categories. Byram's revenues topped $450 million last year across their network of five distribution centers, nine sales and service centers, and two national pharmacies. As I mentioned, this transaction aligns with our strategy to expand along the continuum of care and offers exciting growth opportunities for us. Now let me comment on our first quarter results. Despite weakness in several segments of our business, results for the quarter were largely consistent with our expectations. However, we're not satisfied with these results. The loss of a major domestic customer last year, along with production challenges in our CPS unit, had a significant impact on our results for the quarter. Our teams are working hard to address these areas. As you know, the health care industry is changing rapidly. In the last few weeks, we've seen tangible evidence of this as two very large manufacturer transactions were announced. We also believe that significant cost pressures will persist up and down the value chain, resulting in stepped-up competitive dynamics, margin pressure and additional industry consolidation. However, these challenges also present us with opportunities. For example, we are strategic partners with all of the parties involved in these two large transactions. We are well positioned to help manufacturers address their cost pressures and provide them with superior channel access. As we outlined at our Investor Day, our four-part strategy is designed to position Owens & Minor for sustained profitable growth, and our teams are actively engaged in implementing these strategies. The goal is to strengthen and change our business model so that we are more relevant and valuable to our partners, and clearly aligned with the emerging opportunities in this market. To remind you, the four elements of our enterprise strategy are the following. First, we are building the most intelligent route to market by investing in our supply chain to bring scale, efficiency and enhanced connectivity to the flow of medical products from the point of manufacture all the way to the point of care. Developing a track record of continuous operations improvement is a key element of this strategy, and we're already making strides in Lean, productivity improvements, safety, and overall continuous improvement in our operations. Our second strategy is expanding our services along the continuum of care to help our provider customers follow their patients. This part of the market is growing fast, and our customers are asking for our help in managing the additional complexities of their expanding networks. Non-acute services are important to our provider and manufacturer customers and to us. Building new logistics and service capabilities increases our relevance and represents an exciting growth opportunity for Owens & Minor. The Byram acquisition will give us significant momentum in this area. Our third strategy is to become the preferred outsourcer for leading manufacturers. Just like us, our manufacturing partners are facing significant cost pressures, and we remain their trusted partner. We continue to make progress with large-scale medical device manufacturers, and initial results with several companies are promising. We recently brought on Stuart Morris-Hipkins as EVP of Global Manufacturing Services to unify our manufacturer strategy in the U.S. and Europe, and to accelerate our growth in this important area. Our manufacturers are important partners, and we believe industry dynamics and their needs represent additional growth opportunities for us. Finally, our fourth strategy is to drive value through data, analytics and services. Because we are in the middle of the flow of goods, funds and information from the point of manufacturer to the point of care, we see great opportunity to aggregate and analyze data for our customers to reduce complexity and to create value at the point of care. Our IT and operating teams are building a roadmap to deliver the data architecture necessary to realize this strategy. Going forward, we have a realistic view of the market, and we are taking steps to control what we can control. In the near term, we have improvement levers and growth initiatives that can help us achieve better performance. We have a broad operations improvement agenda underway, and we're using a disciplined process to implement these initiatives. At the same time, we are executing our four-part strategy to reposition our business for long-term success. Before I close, I want to again thank Craig Smith, who will retire as board Chairman later this week at the Annual Shareholders Meeting. Over the last 30 years, Craig helped to grow our company and expand our reach into new geographies and markets. Craig has been a mentor, leader and friend to all of us. On behalf of the team, I want to thank Craig for his service and wish him the best in retirement. With that, Randy will review our financial results and provide an overview of our segment results. Randy? Richard A. Meier - Owens & Minor, Inc.: Thank you, Cody, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll update you on our financial and operational results, and provide a review of the performance across our three segments. But first, I would like to comment on our announcement on the Byram transaction. As Cody said, we are pleased that we have signed an agreement to acquire Byram Healthcare, a leading provider in the market, and look forward to bringing this organization on board. This transaction will give us immediate entry in the direct-to-patient, non-acute care market with a sizable player. Byram will give us a big step forward in our strategic objective to expand our services along the continuum of care. I would like to brief you on some of the high-level details of the agreement. As we said in the announcement, we are acquiring the business for approximately $380 million in cash. After we complete the transition, we expect Byram will add approximately $450 million in incremental revenue. We estimate the acquisition will have limited impact to our adjusted earnings per share in 2017, and will be modestly accretive in 2018. This is a new market for us, so the Byram team and their collective knowledge and experience are important to us. They bring a strategic skill set and expertise to the table that we highly value. As with most acquisitions, there are closing conditions and regulatory approvals for us to work through, so we will provide more information about the financial projections and the details of the transition plan once we close the transaction, which we expect to occur in the third quarter of 2017. We are pleased with this transaction as it will enable us to add another growth driver to our business. As we said at Investor Day, we had planned to look to M&A as a means to expand our services along the continuum of care, one of our four elements of our strategic plan. We look forward to working through the closing process, and we welcome the Byram team aboard. Turning to the quarter, our results were largely in line with our expectations for the quarter, although we experienced some underperformance in certain areas of the business. Despite these challenges, teams across the enterprise have launched a variety of initiatives aimed at growing revenues, achieving gains in productivity and efficiency, and reducing costs across the company. We believe these projects will provide added momentum as we move through the year and beyond. I'll start this morning with an update on consolidated results, and then I'll provide some color on each of the three segments. As we pointed out at our Investor Day, the CPS segment is now known as the Proprietary Products segment, which includes the CPS business, as well as our Global Sourcing operations. As we discuss our results, please keep in mind that these adjustments made into our reported results are outlined in our press release. For the first quarter, we achieved consolidated GAAP net income of $18.8 million or $0.31 per share, and on an adjusted net income of $24.8 million or $0.41 per share. Our results reflect our efforts to adapt to the loss of the major customer in the third quarter of 2016, as well as continuing competitive pressures in the market. Consolidated revenues for the first quarter were $2.33 billion compared to $2.46 billion last year. Excluding the impact of the lost customer, revenues for the quarter grew by nearly 1%. GAAP consolidated operating earnings were $35.5 million for the quarter compared to $45 million, while adjusted operating earnings were $45.4 million compared to $55.5 million. Excluding the impact of the lost customer, adjusted operating earnings would have declined $2.6 million. The work our teams are doing to transform the company helped to offset the impact of the loss of the larger customer and the underperformance of our CPT business. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 34.7%. An improvement in the effective tax rate resulted in the higher percentage of pre-tax income earned in our lower tax jurisdictions. The adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 35.8%. Asset management metrics included DSO of 22.7 days and inventory turns of 8.9 times. During the quarter, the company used cash of $26 million compared to operating cash flow of $45 million last year. The decline was largely due to routine changes in working capital, including timing of vendor payments. Now, let's look at the three segments. Domestic segment revenues for the quarter were $2.19 billion compared to $2.32 billion for the prior year. Revenue declines reflect the loss of a significant domestic customer, which transitioned away from Owens & Minor late last year. Excluding the impact of the lost customers, revenue for the quarter grew approximately 1%. First quarter Domestic operating earnings were $37.3 million versus $41.7 million one year ago. Again, this change was largely due to the loss of a customer and lower income from manufacturer product price changes when compared to the year before. We expect that these changes, as well as ongoing competitive market dynamics, will continue to affect our results in the year ahead. Turning to the International segment, quarterly International segment revenues increased 14% to $95 million, driven by growth from existing customers and new business, partially offset by unfavorable currency translation impacts of $8.4 million. Operating earnings in the International segment were approximately $700,000 compared to $1.1 million last year. The decline resulted from onboarding costs associated with new business. As for the Proprietary Products segment, first quarter revenues were $137 million compared to $141 million last year. Decreased sales of sourced products contributed to the decline in revenues. Operating earnings for the segment were $8.1 million compared to $13.3 million in the prior year as a result of lower revenues and production challenges in the first quarter. At this point, based on our first quarter performance and the expected contributions of the company-wide initiatives, we are reiterating our financial outlook for the year of adjusted earnings per share in the range of $1.75 to $1.85. For 2018, we continue to target financial guidance in the range of $2.05 to $2.20. Thank you. And with that, we'll turn the call over to the operator for questions.