John Groetelaars
Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead
Thanks, Mary Kay and good morning, everybody. Today, we are pleased to announce strong financial results for Q1. And as a result, we are raising both our revenue and earnings guidance for the full year. We started our fiscal year building momentum, accelerating recovery and expanding demand for many critical care products. This underscores our significant transformation, the diversity of our product portfolio and strong execution against our strategic priorities. Q1 revenue grew 8% and adjusted earnings of $1.53 per diluted share increased 35% versus the prior year. We exceeded guidance on both metrics. New product revenue exceeded $150 million, an increase of more than 20% and we achieved significant operating margin expansion of 260 basis points. We executed on our accelerated business optimization program and advanced our strategic growth platforms with both organic and inorganic investments. We listed several other accomplishments in the press release issued this morning, but none of these could be possible without the dedication and commitment of the entire Hill-Rom team around the world. I continue to be impressed and proud of how our team members are rising to the occasion to support our global customers and the broader healthcare community. Now, let me provide some perspective on our quarterly financial results before turning the call over to Barb for more detail. For Q1, revenue growth of 8% reflects better-than-expected performance across all three businesses, as the recovery progresses faster than anticipated, along with the benefit of select one-time COVID purchases. At this point, more than 80% of the Hill-Rom portfolio is showing stable or sequential improvement compared to the fourth quarter. Relative to our guidance, we estimate one-time COVID purchases accounted for about half of the upside or about $40 million and $0.20 per diluted share as COVID cases began peaking late in the quarter. We expect to see some ongoing benefit in the fiscal second quarter, although at a more measured pace, given the good news about the declining volume of COVID hospitalizations. The remainder of the Q1 upside can be attributed to recovery of the underlying business as we continue on the path toward normalization. Geographically, U.S. revenue exceeded our expectations and increased 1% as lower capital revenue like beds and surgical equipment was offset by higher demand for bed rentals and several Front Line Care products. International revenue increased 19% on a constant currency basis with double-digit growth across Europe, Asia-Pacific and Canada. We are encouraged by the strong execution in these markets as we strengthen our engagement and partnership with local governments and customers while supporting their needs during the pandemic. We are also pleased that our strategic investments in China are paying dividends, with a targeted go-to-market commercial strategy and ongoing recovery delivering double-digit growth for six of the last seven quarters. Now, let me turn briefly to review the performance by business at constant currency rates. First, Patient Support Systems revenue increased 8% in Q1, which includes the one-time COVID benefit mentioned earlier. PSS performance reflects the strong international growth of 33% driven by market expansion of med-surg and ICU bed systems across Europe and other markets. As expected, U.S. bed purchases and care communications revenues were down modestly compared to the prior year, but we continue to anticipate sequential recovery from here. We believe we are very well positioned with our strong value proposition and differentiated ecosystem of smart beds and connected care solutions as hospitals prioritize clinical workflow efficiencies. This continues to be validated by several recent competitive wins, including a 5-year standardization project for Hill-Rom with Nurse Call, Voalte mobile applications and medical device integration across one of the nation’s largest healthcare systems. In Front Line Care, first quarter revenue increased 5%. Performance continues to be driven by double-digit growth in patient monitoring, blood pressure and thermometry. Physician office-based products, including our vision care and physical assessment tools, also continue to rebound as U.S. physician office visits resume. In our Vision Care business, we successfully obtained CMS coverage for annual diabetic retinopathy exams in the primary care setting and secured an agreement with a national pharmacy chain to improve access to screenings. Lastly, Surgical Solutions revenue increased 4% in Q1, reflecting strong international growth with the completion of some large projects in EMEA and as expected, lower revenue for surgical equipment in the U.S. due to access limitations related to the pandemic. As I mentioned last quarter, this pandemic has demonstrated that the work we have done to build a strong portfolio will allow Hill-Rom to uniquely benefit from the accelerated transformation of the global healthcare environment. Hill-Rom is well positioned to drive meaningful value and deliver our long range of aspirations of mid single-digit top line and double-digit bottom line growth. We continue to execute on our strategic priorities, including new product momentum and emerging market expansion, while creating value with our business development activities. As you know, on Monday, we acquired the contact-free continuous monitoring technology from EarlySense. This digital sensing technology is currently integrated into our Centrella Smart+ bed to help identify clinical deterioration that can lead to improved survival, decreased costs and decreased need for ICU admissions. By expanding capabilities of the Hill-Rom’s connected care ecosystem, we continue to widen the differentiation gap by transforming the bed into a patient monitoring platform that acts as the hub for digital connectivity and communications. Earlier this month, we also announced our intent to acquire BardyDiagnostics. Bardy is an innovator in digital health and a leading provider of ambulatory cardiac monitoring technologies. The Carnation Ambulatory Monitor, or CAM patch, provides a differentiated, wearable bio-sensing technology that is designed to promote patient comfort and compliance, streamline clinical workflow and yield clinically actionable data that enables physicians to identify specific cardiac arrhythmias. There is a clear value proposition, vast body of clinical evidence, cost effectiveness data and physician support for this category of devices. That said, we are actively monitoring the situation related to the announced category 1 reimbursement rates by Novitas last week and we will provide an update when more definitive information is available. In summary, I am pleased with our strong start to the fiscal year and how our team is executing during these unprecedented times. Despite the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic, our customers’ continued trust and support for the solutions we provide demonstrates our resiliency and why our vision of advancing connected care is more vital than ever. Now, let me turn the call over to Barb.