Christopher R. Reidy
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thanks, Vince, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin on Slide 7 by discussing the key highlights for the fourth quarter, which I'll speak to on a currency-neutral basis. We are pleased with our fourth quarter results. Solid revenue growth of 4.6% was driven by our Medical and Diagnostics segment. As we anticipated and communicated on our last call, pricing declined about 50 basis points in the quarter, bringing the total year pricing impact to about flat. Biosciences growth was impacted by an unfavorable comparison to the prior year, as we expected. We continue to see strong growth in emerging markets and international safety sales. We also experienced a tax rate benefit in the quarter, which was offset by unfavorable currency. This quarter, we recorded EPS pretax charges totaling $46 million or $0.15 per share, which primarily consisted of a workforce reduction charge as a result of operational restructuring activities. Adjusted EPS growth in the quarter was strong at 13%. On Slide 8, I'll review our revenue growth by segment on a currency-neutral basis. Fourth quarter revenue growth was 4.6% for the total company. BD Medical fourth quarter revenues increased 6.1%. Growth in this segment was driven by good performance in all 3 business units. Medical Surgical Systems' growth was 4.7%, with continued strength in emerging markets and international safety sales. Growth in Diabetes Care was 8.1%. This reflects the continued strength of pen needle sales and a favorable comparison to the prior year. Pharmaceutical Systems' growth of 7% was favorably impacted by ordering patterns. For the total year, the Medical segment grew 6.3%, which was aided by a nonannualized acquisition. This contributed about 30 basis points, bringing organic growth to 6.0%. BD Diagnostics' fourth quarter revenues increased 4.2%. The segment's growth was driven by solid sales of Preanalytical Systems' safety-engineered products and solid growth in Diagnostic Systems. Diagnostic Systems benefited from strong sales in microbiology and continued progress with our KIESTRA rollout. For the total year, the Diagnostics segment grew 3.3%. BD Biosciences' revenue growth was about flat in the quarter, which was impacted by an unfavorable comparison to the prior year. You may recall last year, we had a particularly strong fourth quarter related to timing in Western Europe and Japan's stimulus revenues. For the total year, the Biosciences segment grew 5.5%. Moving to Slide 9, I'll walk you through our geographic revenues for the fourth quarter on a currency-neutral basis. BD's reported U.S. revenues increased 2.3% versus the prior year. We continue to view the hospital environment in the U.S. as stable. Revenue in our U.S. Medical segment increased by 3.4%. Strong growth in Diabetes Care was driven by pen needle revenues, which include our BD Nano and BD AutoShield Duo product. Growth was also aided, in part, by a favorable prior year comparison, as previously mentioned. U.S. Diagnostics' results were flat for the quarter. This reflects solid growth in Preanalytical Systems and strong growth in microbiology. This was offset by continued softness in Women's Health and Cancer due to extended cervical cancer screening intervals. We also continued to experience U.S. share losses in our ProbeTec business, which is consistent with what we've communicated the past 2 quarters. U.S. Biosciences' revenues grew 4.4%, driven by solid reagent and instrument growth. Moving on to international. We continue to see strong growth. Revenues grew 6.2%, driven by solid growth in Medical and Diagnostics, both of which grew 7.8%. Both segments experienced strong growth in emerging markets and international safety sales. Biosciences declined 1.8%. This was due to the aforementioned prior year comparison, primarily due to timing in Western Europe. For the total year, U.S. revenues grew 1.9%, and international revenues grew 7.6%. On Slide 10, emerging market revenues grew 13.2%, currency-neutral, and accounted for over 26% of our total revenues. This strong performance was driven by growth in Medical and Diagnostics. China revenues grew by 21.4%, and safety sales in emerging markets grew by 18.6%. We saw a double-digit growth across all emerging markets in the fourth quarter and for the total year. As we continue to build our infrastructure and focus on localized R&D, it is evident that our investments in emerging markets continue to drive robust growth for the company. Moving to global safety on Slide 11. Currency-neutral sales increased 5.5% and grew to $566 million in the quarter. Revenues in the U.S. declined about 0.8%, which was impacted by an unfavorable comparison to the prior year. International safety sales grew 13.7%. Medical safety sales grew 6.4%, while Diagnostics grew 4.6%, driven by a range of safety-engineered products. For the total year, safety revenue grew 6.6%, currency-neutral, driven by strong international growth of 12.3%. Turning to Slide 12. Foreign currency had an unfavorable impact of about 80 basis points on our gross profit margin in the quarter, which was higher than our expectations. On a performance basis, margin expansion was driven by positive contributions from ReLoCo, continuous improvement and pension. These contributions were more than offset by the unfavorable impact of mix, pricing, start-up-related costs and raw materials. Slide 13 recaps the fourth quarter income statement and highlights our foreign currency-neutral results. Since we've already discussed revenue and gross profit, I'll move down the income statement to SSG&A. As a percentage of sales, SSG&A decreased in the quarter. This was driven by sustained cost containment, a favorable comparison to the prior period's legal expenses and favorable pension benefit. R&D was 6.0% of sales in the quarter, which was in line with our expectations as we continue to invest in new products and platforms. Operating income grew 10.1%, driven by solid revenue and gross profit growth, coupled with better leverage in SSG&A. Our tax rate improved 280 basis points over the prior year, which was largely contemplated in our guidance. The improvement was due to favorable geographic mix. Adjusted EPS in the quarter was $1.68 or an increase of 13%. Turning to Slide 14, I'd like to walk you through our expected revenue guidance for the full fiscal year 2015. In summary, we expect revenue growth of 4.5% to 5% on a currency-neutral basis. From a timing perspective, we expect currency-neutral revenue growth in the first quarter to be below the low end of this range due to an unfavorable comparison to the prior year period. On a reported basis, revenue growth is expected to be between 2% and 2.5%, reflecting an FX headwind of 200 to 250 basis points. This assumes a euro-to-dollar exchange ratio of $1.27. At current spot rates, all major currencies relative to the U.S. dollar are down about 8% versus the first quarter of 2014. We expect this unfavorable impact to be most acute in the first quarter with a headwind greater than 250 basis points. We expect the currency impact to moderate through the rest of the year. Moving on to the segments. We expect BD Medical to grow between 4.5% to 5%. This is a slightly lower growth profile than we experienced in fiscal year 2014 due to share gains and a benefit from the SSI acquisition. We expect our Life Sciences segment to grow about 4.5%. And within Life Sciences, we expect Diagnostics to grow between 4% to 4.5% and Biosciences to grow about 4.5% to 5%. Our acquisitions have annualized and will be included in our base going forward. This excludes our 2 most recently closed acquisitions, which are not expected to contribute materially to revenue in fiscal year 2015. We expect revenue growth to continue to be driven by new product launches in all 3 of our segments, continued growth of safety-engineered devices and emerging markets. We anticipate emerging market growth in fiscal year 2015 to be broadly in line with 2014 growth. The growth drivers I just mentioned will be partially offset by the expected unfavorable impact of pricing pressure. Based on our current view of the environment, we expect pricing to normalize at about 30 to 40 basis points of pressure for the year. Now moving on to Slide 15. There are a number of moving parts that impact earnings per share in fiscal year 2015. For modeling purposes and to ensure consistency, I'd like to provide more color on EPS guidance. When we announced the CareFusion acquisition, we informed you that we would be moving to an adjusted cash EPS basis to increase transparency into our underlying business performance. Going forward, that means that we will add back the amortization of acquisition-related intangibles to adjusted earnings per share. For fiscal year 2014, this changed our adjusted EPS from $6.25 to $6.50, which is ratable across all 4 quarters. For fiscal year 2015, we expect to grow earnings by about 9% to 10% on an underlying basis. This is very consistent with the earnings growth profile we have communicated for some time. The unfavorable impact of the suspension of our share repurchase program is worth about 100 basis points, bringing earnings growth to 8% to 9%. Assuming current spot rates, the unfavorable impact of foreign currency is about 400 basis points, bringing adjusted earnings growth to 4% to 5%. From a timing perspective, the impact of unfavorable currency will be most acute in the first quarter, similar to revenue. In the first quarter, we expect EPS to be about flat when compared with the first quarter of fiscal year 2014. For the first half of the year, we expect currency-neutral earnings growth to track slightly below our guided range of 8% to 9%. Turning to Slide 16. I'd like to walk through our additional elements of our guidance for the full fiscal year 2015. As a reminder, all fiscal year 2015 guidance will exclude the amortization of acquisition-related intangibles. We expect gross profit margin to be approximately 52%. Performance improvements are largely offset by negative currency translation, pricing pressure and pension. Our ReLoCo cost savings program is expected to deliver savings broadly in line with benefits experienced in fiscal year 2014. SSG&A as a percentage of sales is expected to be about 25%. Our guidance also reflects continued investments in emerging markets, as well as costs related to new product launches. We expect our R&D investment to be in line with fiscal year 2014 at about 6% of revenues. We continue to invest in new products and platforms, including incremental R&D investments in emerging markets. As a result of the items I just detailed, operating margin is expected to be between 20.5% and 21% of revenues. Excluding the unfavorable impact of foreign currency, we expect our underlying operating margin to improve by about 40 to 50 basis points. This also excludes pension headwinds, which equal approximately half of the margin expansion. We expect our tax rate to be between 21.5% and 22.5% as we continue to see improvement from geographic mix. For fiscal year 2015, we anticipate our average fully diluted share count to be broadly in line with fiscal year 2014. Cash flow is expected to remain strong with operating cash flow of about $1.85 billion in fiscal year 2015. Capital expenditures are expected to be about $625 million. Our guidance also contemplates the GenCell acquisition, which does not materially impact earnings. With respect to our anticipated CareFusion acquisition, things are progressing according to plan, and we do not have any updates to the financial parameters we've described when we announced the deal last month. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Vince, who will provide you with an update on our product portfolio.