Steve Voskuil
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead
Thank you, Robert. Before discussing our third quarter results, I would like to remind everyone that our results for 2014 reflect the business as it existed when it was part of Kimberly-Clark. Included in our 2014 results our pre-spin cost associated with executing the spin-off. Now let me start with some key information from our press release. Third quarter sales were $390 million, a 2% decrease in constant currency compared to the prior year. Adjusted operating margin was 12% for the quarter compared to the prior year of 15%. Adjusted EBITDA was $56 million for the quarter compared to $81 million the prior year. Taking a more detailed look at our results for the third quarter, overall sales of $390 million were down 5% compared to $409 million a year ago. Exchange rates negatively affected net sales by 3% or approximately $13 million and lower selling prices impacted sales by 1%. Adjusted gross margin of 35% this quarter was even with a year ago. Manufacturing cost savings and lower commodity prices in the quarter were offset by lower production volume and price erosion in S&IP. Adjusted operating profit was $46 million, down from $63 million a year ago. The decrease was driven by lower S&IP sales volume and pricing and increased standalone costs due to our spin-off. During the quarter, we incurred $16 million of post spin related charges; $9 million for litigation matters and $7 million in intangible amortization expense that were excluded from adjusted operating profit. Additionally the non-cash preliminary goodwill impairment that Robert mentioned was excluded from adjusted operating profit. As a result, adjusted operating profit margin was 12% for the quarter. Looking at our performance on a segment basis, S&IP net sales declined 8% in the quarter to $257 million, down 4% on a constant currency basis, which represents a 2% decline in volume and a 2% price loss. S&IP operating profit for the quarter fell to $26 million compared to $37 million the prior year. As a result of lower sales volume and price, lower fix constant absorption as we curtail production to manage inventories and standalone cost. As Robert mentioned, we continue to face some challenges in S&IP. Let me provide some additional details, first as results of competitors aggressively discounting we continue to see price erosion and some market share loss in certain S&IP categories. While we have been successful in renewing key contracts these contracts were negotiated at lower prices than expiring contracts. Given the current dynamics in S&IP we continually focus on striking the right balance between maintaining market shares and driving profitability and our approach varies by category. In some categories like sterilization, we will utilize innovation and pricing to aggressively defend our leading market share. In proactive apparel, which is our lowest margin category volume losses more likely as competitor use price to gain share. Second, certain product categories due to their competitive intensity are proving to be more challenging to achieve that balance. While we have gained new accounts in surgical drapes and gowns leveraging new innovative like our AERO BLUE performance gowns these increases have not completely offset pre-spin account losses in North America and EMEA. Third, we’re beginning to see positive results from our renewed focus in our exam glove business. We have grown our North American market share for the second straight quarter and have a strong new business pipeline. To-date, we have secured $11 million dollars of incremental annual contracts. While we had expected to realize more benefit from those commitments in the third quarter the conversion process has taken longer than we anticipated. We now expect these commitments to benefit our fourth quarter 2015 and full year 2016 results. Exam glove sales to Kimberly-Clark are another driver. To-date these sales are running below prior year by approximately $5 million, to the elevated pre-spin purchases and inventory adjustments. It’s important to note that while these sales represent approximately 5% of our total S&IP business the margin on these sales is minimal given our pricing agreement post-spin. Medical devices delivered another solid quarter of growth led by interventional pain, digestive health and ON-Q. Compared to the prior year sales increase 3% to $126 million or 5% on a constant currency basis. Results were driven by 4% higher volume and a 1% gain in selling price, partially offset by 2% of unfavorable currency exchange rates. Interventional pain delivered another strong quarter, with 22% growth fueled by continue momentum of COOLIEF in North America. Within the surgical pain category we’re seeing encouraging signs as the market dynamics continue to improve. ON-Q posted 5% volume growth in the third quarter this was the first quarter since the fourth quarter of 2013 there ON-Q delivered year-over-year growth. It’s the second quarter consecutively that ON-Q sales have increased. Medical device operating profit for the quarter improved 40% to $29 million compare to $20 million a year ago, increased research and development investment was more than offset by higher volume and price manufacturing cost saving and lower general administrative expenses due to lower amortization. Before moving to the balance sheet I would like to discuss the non-cash preliminary goodwill impairment in a little bit more detail. In accordance with GAAP accounting rules we perform our annual improvement test as of July 1st each year. As such, we conducted our annual impairment test in third quarter, which resulted in the preliminary impairment charge of $476 million related to the goodwill in our S&IP business. The size of the impairment charge will be finalized in fourth quarter. As you will recall last year when we completed the impairment testing the fair value of our S&IP business exceeded its carrying value by only 6%. This would disclosed in our 2014 third quarter 10-Q. As we have discussed, during the course of 2015, the competitive dynamics and S&IP were more challenging than expected as price declines and volume losses affected our segment results. Even though we expect S&IP volumes to stabilize and grow slightly in the balance of the year sequentially. We now anticipate price loss in the neighborhood of 2% due to lower commodity costs and continued changes in the competitive landscape. We anticipate that this price environment will carry over into 2016, as pricing will reflect discounts on contracts renewed in 2015 and an environment of lower commodity costs continues. We took these pricing and competitive market dynamics into account in our discounted cash flow model when we calculated the fair value of the S&IP business for purposes of the 2015 goodwill impairment test. We concluded that the fair value of the business no longer exceeded the carrying value of the S&IP net assets on our balance sheet. This difference represents the first of two elements in the overall goodwill impairment charge. The second element is related to the large amount of goodwill on the S&IP balance sheet associated with legacy acquisitions. In the impairment analysis this legacy goodwill is compared to implied goodwill after tangible and intangible net assets are stepped up to their fair value. Those intangible assets were developed over the course of Halyard’s long history within Kimberly-Clark, such as our significant domestic and international customer base, our widely recognized trade and product names and technology and knowhow associated with many of our manufacturing processes. As these intangible assets are fair valued for the purpose of the impairment analysis along with the write-offs of other net assets on our balance sheet the residual value left to allocate to implied goodwill quickly diminishes. The difference between this implied goodwill and the actual goodwill on the S&IP balance sheet represents the second element of the impairment charge and over half of the overall charge. It is important to recognize that this impairment is a non-cash charge and that it does not impact our cash flow from operations, our bank covenants or our liquidity. Most importantly, this preliminary non-cash charge does not affect our ability to execute on our long-term strategy of transforming our product portfolio to higher margin and faster growth medical devices. Now let’s turn to our balance sheet and cash generation. For the quarter cash from operations was $19 million compared to $24 million a year ago. At quarter-end, we had $113 million of cash on hand. We continue to move aggressively to build out our M&A pipeline. Our cash balance along with our current leverage positions us well to shift our portfolio to medical devices. Robert has already discussed our updated view for our full year 2015 adjusted diluted EPS. And now I’d review the key planning assumptions that we have revised and build into our updated outlook for the balance of the year. Based on continued challenging dynamics, price erosion and anticipated lower glove sales to Kimberly-Clark, we now expect S&IP sales to decline 5% to 7% in constant currency. This assumes normal timing and severity for this year’s cold and flu season. Based on our commodity outlook, we now anticipate cost deflation and key inputs of $25 million to $30 million, up from our previous guidance of $20 million to $25 million. With the recent weakening of the US dollar, we now anticipate negative foreign currency translation to impact net sales between 2.5% and 3.5%. Additionally, we expect the negative currency impact on operating profit to be in the range of $10 million to $15 million. Our remaining 2015 key planning assumptions, which we affirmed are as follows. Net sales growth on a constant currency basis is expected to decline 1% to 3% compared to 2014. We anticipate that medical device sales will grow 2% to 4% compared to 2014 on a constant currency basis. To support product innovation, we anticipate research and development investment of $30 million to $35 million. Capital spending is expected to be in the range of $70 million to $75 million for the year. This is slightly above our long-term target of 3% of net sales due to spin related projects. For 2015, we anticipate spin related transitional costs to be in the range of $45 million to $55 million. We continue to forecast the total amount for 2014, ‘15 and ‘16 to be in the range of $60 million to $75 million. Finally, our adjusted effective tax rate for 2015 is expected to be in the range of 37 % to 39%. In summary, for the quarter we delivered adjusted earnings per share slightly ahead of our plan, as well as another quarter of medical devices growth. In S&IP, we are beginning to see encouraging signs in our exam glove category and remain committed to improving that segment’s overall performance. While we have more work ahead of us we are well-positioned to execute our strategy of transforming our product portfolio to higher margin and faster growth medical devices. Cassia, we will now take any questions.