Operator
Operator
Hello, and welcome to BD's Third Fiscal Quarter 2016 Earnings Call. At the request of BD, today's call is being recorded. It will be available for replay through August 11, 2016 on the Investors page of the bd.com website or by phone at 800-585-8367 for domestic calls and area code 404-537-3406 for international calls, using confirmation number 44231624. I would like to inform all parties that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer segment. Beginning this call is Ms. Monique Dolecki, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Dolecki, you may begin. Monique N. Dolecki - Becton, Dickinson & Co.: Thank you, Crystal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review our third fiscal quarter results. As we referenced in our press release, we are presenting a set of slides to accompany our remarks on this call. The presentation is posted on the Investor Relations page of our website at bd.com. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements and it is possible that actual results could differ from our expectations. Factors that could cause such differences appear in our third fiscal quarter press release and in the MD&A sections of our recent SEC filings. We will also discuss some non-GAAP financial measures with respect to our performance. A reconciliation to GAAP measures can be found in our press release and its related financial schedules and in the slides. A copy of the release, including the financial schedules, is posted on the bd.com website. As a reminder, we annualized the acquisition of CareFusion in March. And as such, our third quarter results reflect the new BD in both the current and prior-year period. In addition, comparable prior-year revenues are adjusted to exclude sales related to the terminated agreement with CareFusion for the sale of Fisher & Paykel's respiratory care products. The fiscal year 2016 comparable revenue guidance provided today will also exclude the year-over-year impact of this contract termination. The impact to the bottom line is not material and is included in our EPS guidance. Comparable organic revenues are adjusted to further exclude the impact of non-annualized acquisitions and closed divestitures. Details of the purchase accounting and other smaller adjustments and the comparable basis revenue results can be found in the reconciliation to GAAP measures in the financial schedules, in our press release or the appendix of the Investor Relations slides. At this time, we would like to announce some leadership changes, which will take place on October 1. Jerry Hurwitz, Executive Vice President of HR and Chief Human Resources Officer, has announced his intention to retire from the company. We thank Jerry for his many contributions and his 24 years of service to BD. We are also very pleased to announce that Linda Tharby will be our next Executive Vice President of HR and Chief Human Resources Officer, effective with Jerry's retirement. We are confident that Linda's drive for performance, combined with her strong strategic agility and passion for people development, will make her well suited to lead HR. Linda's appointment helps the company meet a unique business need and enables Linda to gain personal development on the functional leadership side. We are also pleased to announce that Alberto Mas, currently the Worldwide President of Diagnostic Systems, will succeed Linda as Executive Vice President and President of the Life Sciences segment. Having served as president of three major business units during his 24-year career at BD, Alberto is uniquely positioned for this next step. Since assuming his position of Worldwide President of Diagnostic Systems in 2013, Alberto has focused the business on reinventing the lab through automation and standardization and advancing our position in molecular diagnostics through differentiated assays. We are confident that both of these leaders will make major contributions to our future success as we build a bigger, better, bolder BD. Leading the call this morning is Vince Forlenza, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President. Also joining us are Chris Reidy, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer; Tom Polen, Executive Vice President and President of the Medical Segment; and Linda Tharby in her current role as Executive Vice President and President of the Life Sciences segment. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Vince. Vincent A. Forlenza - Becton, Dickinson & Co.: Thank you, Monique, and good morning, everyone. Before we discuss the company's performance in the quarter, I would like to comment briefly on the organizational changes Monique just mentioned. Over the past several years, we have continued to strengthen our leadership team through a diversity of experiences and perspectives to form a global team that helps ensure our future success and the continued development of our senior leaders. Our leadership team is designed to support the company's strategy and increased focus on growth, as we develop more impactful solutions for our customers. We're extremely pleased to announce Linda and Alberto's new roles, as they help lead the company through our next phase of growth. Now, turning to slide four and the company's results. We're pleased with our third quarter growth profile. Performance from both the Medical and Life Sciences segments contributed to solid organic revenue growth that was in line with our expectations. Our results this quarter continue to highlight our consistent performance and the benefit of our diverse portfolio. We continue to drive strong underlying margin expansion through the achievement of synergies, operational efficiencies and continuous improvement. We're also increasing our R&D investment in key strategic opportunities and expect to fully utilize the benefit of the medical device tax suspension. As we've shared with you, we have a robust pipeline and look forward to sharing new opportunities with you in the near future. Looking ahead, I feel good about the business and our performance year-to-date gives us confidence in our full year outlook. Moving to slide five. I will review our third quarter revenue and EPS results, which I will speak to on a currency neutral basis. Total company organic revenues grew 4%, in line with our expectations. Adjusted EPS of $2.35 was ahead of our expectations. As I just mentioned, this was driven by strong operating performance, which enables us to invest incremental dollars in R&D. Chris will provide more details on this later in his remarks Now, I'd like to turn things over to Chris for a more detailed discussion of our third quarter financial performance and our updated fiscal year 2016 guidance. Christopher R. Reidy - Becton, Dickinson & Co.: Thanks, Vince, and good morning, everyone. As Vince just mentioned, the breadth and geographic diversity of our portfolio contributed to solid third quarter results. Total third quarter revenues of $3.2 billion grew 4% on a comparable organic basis. This was in line with the growth expectations we had outlined on last quarter's earnings call. As a reminder, the second fiscal quarter had benefited by about 50 basis points from the timing of revenues, which occurred earlier than originally anticipated. In turn, this negatively impacted the third quarter by about 50 basis points. I'll discuss this further as I take you through the business results. BD Medical third quarter revenues increased 3%, reflecting strong performance in Medication Management Solutions and Diabetes Care units and solid growth in the Medication and Procedural Solutions unit. As anticipated, performance in the Pharmaceutical Systems and Respiratory Solutions units were negatively impacted, in part, by customer ordering patterns and the timing of capital placements. These items occurred earlier than originally anticipated, benefiting the second fiscal quarter as communicated on last quarter's earnings call. Medication and Procedural Solutions growth was 2.1%, which reflects strength in infusion therapy and safety-engineered products, but was negatively impacted by the divestiture of our Spine business and a tough comparison to the prior year. Medication Management Solutions revenues grew 6.2%, driven by strong dispensing capital installations with our Pyxis platform. We also saw solid growth in the infusion business. Growth in Diabetes Care was 6.6%, driven by pen needles and a favorable comparison to the prior year. Pharmaceutical Systems growth of 1.5% reflects strong growth in SAIS and safety-engineered products, partially offset by the aforementioned timing of customer orders. Respiratory Solutions revenues decreased 3.3%, reflecting the aforementioned timing of capital placements. Respiratory Solutions had a negative impact of 60 basis points to the third quarter organic growth. Excluding the Respiratory Solutions business, total company organic growth was 4.6%. BD Life Sciences third quarter revenues increased 6%, primarily driven by strong growth in the Preanalytical Systems and Diagnostic Systems units. Preanalytical Systems growth of 6.6% was driven by international markets and safety-engineered products in the U.S. Diagnostic Systems growth of 9.5% was the result of strong growth in microbiology, led by the timing of BD Kiestra installations, as well as continued strength in blood culture and growth in BD MAX. Biosciences revenues grew 1.2% in the third quarter. We are seeing additional pressure in Africa related to our clinical HIV business, and we continue to monitor this situation. In the U.S., Biosciences had double-digit growth, driven by sales of research instruments. In addition, we experienced strong sales in research reagents globally. Growth was partially offset by funding delays, primarily in Western Europe and Japan. Moving to slide eight. I'll walk you through our geographic revenues for the third quarter on a currency neutral basis. U.S. revenues increased 3.4%, reflecting strength in both the Medical and Life Sciences segments. BD Medical's performance reflects strength in dispensing capital installations, which includes the benefit of a large customer installation, as well as strong performance in infusion systems, which include a double-digit growth in our disposables business. SAIS and safety-engineered products also contributed to growth in the quarter. BD Life Sciences growth in the U.S. reflects continued strength in our research business in Biosciences, led by the recently-launched FACSymphony and FACSCelesta instruments and a growing research reagent and Sirigen dye portfolio, including our new OptiBuild platform for customized reagents. Diagnostic Systems was driven by strong growth in molecular, including BD MAX; and growth in core blood culture. Preanalytical Systems also had solid performance across all core platforms during the quarter. Moving on to international, revenues grew 4.6%. This is below our normal growth rate and primarily reflects some unfavorable timing events within the Medical segment. The Medical segment grew 2.6%. This reflects strength in China and sales of safety-engineered products and strong dispensing installations and Medication Management Solutions. This growth was partially offset by the timing events in Pharmaceutical Systems and Respiratory Solutions and softness in the Middle East, as we expected. The Life Sciences segment grew 8.1%. Preanalytical Systems growth was very strong across all regions, primarily due to continued expansion of safety-engineered products. Diagnostic Systems had strong growth in Western Europe, driven by Kiestra installations in the quarter. Overall strength in core microbiology and cervical cancer-related sales also contributed to growth in Diagnostic Systems. The Biosciences business was negatively impacted by the aforementioned declines in the HIV business and funding delays. Now, turning to slide nine, developed markets revenues grew 3.7%, and emerging markets revenues grew 5.2%. The third quarter growth rate in emerging markets reflects solid growth in China and Latin America, partially offset by declines in the Middle East and Africa, as communicated on last quarter's earnings call. The Middle East and Africa had a negative impact of approximately 400 basis points. Excluding these regions, emerging markets grew approximately 9% in the quarter. China growth for the third quarter was 9.5%. Revenue growth across the Medical and Life Sciences segments was driven by continued strong demand for consumables. For the total year, we continue to expect China to grow in the low-double digit range. We now anticipate total emerging markets to grow in the mid-single digit range. We expect that, as we exit fiscal year 2016, these headwinds in the Middle East and Africa will largely be behind us. It's important to note that we anticipate emerging markets growth of high-single digits as we move forward. Moving to global safety on slide 10. Currency neutral sales increased 8.9%. Safety revenues in the U.S. grew 5.3% and international sales grew 13.9%, currency neutral, driven by strength in Asia-Pacific and Europe. Safety revenues grew 19.6% in emerging markets. Medical safety sales grew 9.6%, driven by a range of safety-engineered products including safety catheters and strength in Pharmaceutical Systems. The benefits from E.U. safety legislation continued to aid growth in the quarter. Life Sciences safety sales, which are driven by our Preanalytical Systems unit, grew 7.6% in the quarter. Slide 11 recaps the third quarter income statement and highlights our currency neutral results. As I mentioned a few moments ago, revenues grew 4% on a comparable organic currency neutral basis. Pricing was slightly positive in the quarter. Gross profit improved 6.3%. I'll provide more color on gross profit on the next slide, when we look at the underlying performance and the impact of currency. SSG&A as a percentage of revenues was 22.7%. We're very pleased with the leverage we're getting, which includes the benefit of cost synergy capture. The suspension of the medical device tax also had a positive impact on SSG&A. So, as we've previously communicated, we intend to reinvest the savings in R&D, which you're beginning to see on the R&D line. R&D as a percentage of revenues was 6.5%. We continue to invest in new products and innovation and expect to incrementally reinvest approximately $25 million of the medical device tax in the fourth quarter. As a result, we expect R&D as a percentage of revenues in the fourth quarter to be above our full year guidance range. This brings our total year R&D dollars as a percentage of revenue closer to 6.5%. Operating income grew 12.8%, reflecting strong P&L leverage. Our tax rate declined 350 basis points to 21.3%, which is in line with our full year expectations of 21% to 22%. As Vince discussed earlier, adjusted earnings per share were $2.35, which is a 19.5% increase versus the prior year. This reflects our solid growth profile, strong underlying margin expansion and our lower tax rate. I'd also like to highlight that, year-to-date, we have driven very strong earnings growth of 33.9%. Slide 12 illustrates our gross profit and operating margin for the third quarter. Foreign currency had an unfavorable impact of about 50 basis points on our gross profit margin in the quarter. On a performance basis, strong gross margin expansion of 160 basis points was primarily driven by operational performance and continuous improvement initiatives and, to a lesser extent, from favorable raw material prices. Strong operating margin performance of 210 basis points was primarily driven by gross margin expansion, combined with the achievement of operational efficiencies and the positive impact of cost synergies. These contributions were partially offset by increased R&D expenses we incurred following the medical device tax suspension. Foreign currency had an unfavorable impact of 60 basis points on operating margin in the quarter. Year-to-date, we have driven approximately 280 basis points of underlying operating margin expansion. This strong performance gives us the ability to raise our guidance for the year to a range of 200 basis points to 210 basis points of underlying operating margin expansion. Moving on to slide 14. To ensure consistency and clarity, I'd like to provide more color on revenue growth guidance. Last quarter, we noted there was approximately a 50 basis point benefit from the timing of revenues that occurred earlier than we anticipated. We expected that timing to bring down the third quarter growth rate a bit, and we had guided this quarter to be below our revenue growth range for the total year. The key to understanding our second half revenue growth trajectory is to focus on the absolute dollars we're achieving this year versus last year. We are up against a tough comparison this quarter because, in terms of absolute dollars, that was our highest quarter last year. As you model out the total fiscal year, we have been steadily improving sequential revenue dollars every quarter. While our year-to-date performance implies a revenue growth rate of about 7% in the fourth quarter, you will see that, in terms of absolute dollars, it's reasonable and achievable as illustrated on slide 14. Moving on to slide 15. We are maintaining our adjusted EPS guidance range of $8.50 to $8.57. Our strong performance in the third quarter and our full year outlook give us the confidence to raise our currency neutral adjusted EPS guidance for fiscal 2016 by 1 percentage point to a range of $9.08 to $9.15, while increasing our investment in R&D. Offsetting this increased performance are incremental currency headwinds of approximately 1 percentage point that have resulted from the U.S. dollar strengthening relative to the euro and other currencies since we provided guidance in May. We remain extremely pleased with our performance and our ability to execute and deliver on our commitments. Turning to slide 16. I'd like to walk through additional elements of our guidance for the full fiscal year 2016. We continue to expect growth of 4.5% to 5% in BD Medical. Due to the aforementioned challenges in Africa in our Biosciences business, we now expect revenues in BD Life Sciences to grow between 3.5% and 4%. This brings total BD to the bottom end of our revenue growth guidance range of 4.5% to 5% for the total year. On a reported basis, revenue growth for the total year is expected to be between 21% and 21.5%, which reflects a currency headwind of about 350 basis points, which is an incremental 50 basis point headwind compared to our prior guidance of about 300 basis points of currency headwinds. Based on our current view of the environment, we continue to expect pricing to be flat to slightly positive for the year. Our guidance assumes a euro-to-dollar exchange rate of $1.11 for the rest of the year. We see some remaining FX headwinds over the fourth quarter, as non-euro currencies are also expected to be unfavorable year-over-year. Before I turn the call back over to Vince, I'd like to note that, in June, we continued to deleverage as we paid down a $750 million debt maturity associated with the CareFusion acquisition. At the end of the third quarter, our leverage ratio was 3.4 times and we remain on track to achieve our commitment of 3 times gross debt leverage within 24 months of close or March of 2017. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Vince, who will provide you with an update on our key initiatives and product portfolio. Vincent A. Forlenza - Becton, Dickinson & Co.: Thank you, Chris. Moving on to slide 18. I will walk through our updates on product innovation, strategic and business initiatives and partnerships and collaborations. Starting with new product innovation. Within our Medical business, we reached over 100 hospitals with Alaris infusion pump interoperability. Bi-directional interoperability to a hospital's electronic medical records improves patient safety and care by reducing manual input of data and programming errors, while also improving staff efficiency. Within our Life Science business, we are seeing strong performance from our recently-launched research instruments, FACSymphony and FACSCelesta. In addition, to complement the portfolio, we recently introduced the unique, mid-level cell sorter, the FACSMelody, which has received positive customer feedback. The FACSMelody will have a full scale commercial launch in the fourth quarter. All of these instruments are complemented by our Sirigen dyes and recently-launched OptiBuild-customized reagents. In the area of women's health, we have continued to make good progress. We have already submitted our vaginitis and GC/CT assays and are now in the process of submitting our HPV assay to the FDA for approval. This assay is designed to provide physicians access to broader, high-risk HPV genotype information beyond types 16 and 18 to guide informed treatment decisions for their patients. This is an important milestone for the company and is complementary to our current portfolio. As part of our menu extension on BD MAX, we have completed an agreement with Check-Points BD, a Netherlands-based company, which is focused on the development of rapid molecular tests for the detection of carbapenem-resistant organisms. Check-Points currently has a CE-marked product optimized for the BD MAX that incorporates our open system reagents. Within strategic and business initiatives, we're pleased with the progress towards the creation of the Respiratory Solutions joint venture and remain on track to close late in fiscal year 2016 or early in fiscal 2017. As we told you last quarter, we have also continued to make good progress with our CareFusion product registration process. We remain on track with our plans to achieve revenue synergies and continue to expect them to begin to materialize in fiscal year 2017 in our Medication and Procedural Solutions business. And in the areas of partnerships and collaborations, we recently completed an in-depth launch planning meeting with Medtronic to integrate our commercial plans and operations, as we anticipate the launch of our insulin infusion set. We remain on track for broad commercial release in early fiscal year 2017. As you can see, we are executing on our strategy and continue to have strong opportunities to drive growth and innovation. We look forward to updating you further at our Analyst Day in New York City in November. Moving on to our business update on slide 19. We continued to make progress with our cost synergy capture. Our G&A functional transformation continued in the third quarter. We're making progress, expanding and leveraging global shared services and centers of excellence. We also continued to focus on implementing lean and efficient end-to-end processes with our corporate functions. During the quarter, we also announced plans to close two plants as we made progress with our footprint optimization. We continue to expect the majority of manufacturing-related synergies to be achieved in the latter part of our deal horizon. We remain on track to achieve our FY 2016 cost synergies and continue to expect $325 million to $350 million in total cost synergies related to the CareFusion acquisition as we exit fiscal year 2018. Turning to operating margin expansion. The consistent solid performance of our businesses, combined with operating efficiencies, cost leveraging and cost synergy capture, is driving continued underlying operating margin expansion. In addition to the 100 basis points of operating margin expansion we achieved last year, we expect another 200 basis points to 210 basis points of expansion this fiscal year. Now, I'd like to reiterate the key messages from our presentation today. First, this was a solid third quarter. Both segments performed well, and our results highlight the benefit of our diverse portfolio, both from a product and geographic standpoint. Second, we are delivering strong operating performance. Also, with respect to our operating efficiencies, cost leverage and cost synergy capture are generating significant operating margin improvement, as evidenced by our increased guidance for the total year. Also, we have many exciting opportunities in the pipeline, and we are incrementally investing in R&D to fund those strategic opportunities. Finally, we are confident in our outlook for the full fiscal year. We remain very optimistic about BD's prospects for the future and our ability to continue to deliver strong returns to shareholders over time. Thank you. We will now open the call to questions.