Steve Voskuil
Analyst · KeyBanc. Please go ahead
Thanks Joe and good morning, everyone. First let me say that it was an extremely busy quarter for the global Avanos team and I'm proud of the results we delivered. Before we go into a more detailed review of the numbers, I would like to reiterate as we've stated in our press release this morning that due to the S&IP divestiture the results of the S&IP business are treated as discontinued operations in the medical device business as continuing operations. As a result, we are required to allocate to shared costs that were previously allocated to S&IP entirely to the medical device business. These costs previously allocated to S&IP, totaled $9 million for the quarter compared to $28 million a year ago. With that Avanos delivered another strong quarter with medical device sales increasing 8% to $161 million. This represents a 7% increase on an constant currency basis driven by 5% volume growth in a favorable mix and price benefit of 2%. We continue to see strength in medical device sales across interventional pain, digestive health and respiratory health. Interventional pain continues to be our fastest growing category as we raise patients awareness through our marketing efforts and saw increased adoption. With our heightened focus on commercial execution, we also saw higher conversion from our single probe kits to multi-probe kits driven by the acceleration of knee procedures. Importantly, multi-probe kits significantly reduce the overall time a physician needs to perform the COOLIEF procedure. This shift to multi-probe kits drove a portion of our favorable failed mix given their higher selling price compared to single-probe kits. In digestive health, we saw volume growth in Mic-Key and extension sets driven by efforts to gain market share in the alternative site market. Additionally, the recent launch of the 14 French Mic-Key GJ [ph] tube helped round out our product offerings. Finally, in respiratory health, our sale forces increased emphasis on alternative sites drove strong demand for BALLARD closed suction systems including our Turbo-Clean product line which also benefited our sales mix. As planned, during the quarter we increased investments in clinical studies and market development to accelerate growth along with R&D spending to enhance our pipeline. These investments benefited top line performance and will enhance further growth. As we enter the second half of the year, we plan to increase these investments to further support our strategic priorities. As a result, medical device operating profit came in at $32 million for the quarter compared to $41 million a year ago and operating margin was 20% compared to 27% last year. The higher level of investing coupled with the expected dis-synergies from the S&IP business impacted operating margin. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $36 million compared to $51 million a year ago, as results from discontinued operations this year, were only for one-month compared to the entire quarter last year. As expected, adjusted gross margin from continuing operations expanded 230 basis points compared to the prior year to 60%. Gross margins primarily benefited from the inclusion of only one month of S&IP cost allocated to continuing operations compared to three months a year ago. Going forward, we expect gross margin to continue to be in the low 60s. Adjusted net income totaled $23 million from $24 million a year ago. As Joe mentioned, we in $0.48 of adjusted diluted earnings per share this quarter. Three factors contributed to our strong performance. First, medical device sales came in at the high end of our planning assumptions. Second, SG&A spending was lower than anticipated. We expect SG&A to accelerate meaningfully in the back half of the year, as we continue to fund our growth investments in other strategic priorities. And finally, the lower than expected adjusted effective tax rate of 21.2% benefited results. Shifting to our balance sheet and cash generation, we ended the quarter in a strong financial position with $531 million of cash on hand. As previously communicated, we used $299 million of proceeds to repay our term loan, following the recent acquisition of Game Ready, we have approximately $750 million of acquisition capacity. Cash from operating activities, less capital expenditures or free cash flow was an outflow of $108 million for the quarter. The decline in free cash flow is largely attributable to classification and timing of cash flows related to the S&IP divestiture. In addition, we saw $11 million of capital spending primarily related to our new IT system. Our balance sheet remains strong and we have significant firepower to invest in future growth opportunities. Shifting to our guidance, we're increasing full year adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance from a $1.65 to $1.85 a range of $1.75 to $1.90 which includes earnings from both continuing and discontinued operations. Based on current trends, we're also updating the following planning assumptions. Due to our medical device sales performance for the first half of 2018, we are raising our full year expectation from 4% to 6%, to 5% to 7% growth on a constant currency basis. The adjusted effective tax rate is now expected to range between 23% and 25% for the year. The balance of our 2018 planning assumptions which we reaffirmed at our June 21, Analyst and Investor Conference remain unchanged. In summary, we continued our sales momentum and delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share ahead of our plan. We have a solid financial profile and are well position to continue investing in attractive growth opportunities. With that, operator we're ready to take questions.