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Bruker Corporation (BRKR)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 6, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Bruker's Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today's event is being recorded. This time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Joshua Young. Sir, please go ahead.

Joshua S. Young

Analyst

Thank you very much, Jamie. Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to Bruker's Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Joshua Young, I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations for Bruker. Joining me on today's call are Frank Laukien, our President and CEO; and Charlie Wagner, Bruker's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition to the earnings release which we issued earlier today, we'll be referencing a slide presentation as part of today's conference call. The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the earnings release hyperlink on Bruker's Investor Relations website. During today's call, we will be highlighting non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of our GAAP to our non-GAAP financial statements is included in our earnings release and in our webcast presentation. Before we begin, I'd like to reference Bruker's Safe Harbor statement, which is shown on Slide #2 of the presentation. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the company that involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in today's earnings release and in our Form 10-K as well as other subsequent SEC filings. Also note that the following information is related to current business conditions and our outlook as of today, November 6, 2014. Consistent with our prior practice, we do not intend to update our projections based on new information, future events or other reasons prior to the release of our fourth quarter 2014 financial results in February 2015. We will begin today's call with Frank providing a business summary of our third quarter performance. Charlie will then cover our financials for the third quarter in more detail. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bruker's CEO, Frank Laukien.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Thanks, Joshua. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on the call today. I'll begin my presentation on Slide 4. We had previously communicated our reduced outlook for the second half of 2014 and a very weak third quarter. As a result of a number of factors outlined in our second quarter earnings call, Q3 '14 revenues came in below our reduced outlook. In the third quarter of 2014, we reported $420 million in revenues, a 4% decline from Q3 2013. On the bottom line, we reported $0.14 in non-GAAP EPS during the quarter, a 30% decline from the previous year's third quarter. All 3 of our BSI operating groups reported revenue declines, with different drivers in each of the groups. There were 4 key developments that led to our performance. First, within our BioSpin Group, our NMR revenue decline in the quarter year-over-year as a result of weaker first half 2014 orders. Second, our BMAT group -- our BMAT business continues to suffer from a cyclical downturn in the semiconductor and data storage markets, which led to meaningful year-over-year revenue decline for our AXS and Nano Surfaces divisions. We are also seeing weakness in others selected industrial markets such as minerals and mining and metals. Third, our to divest and restructure significant portions of the CAM division led to a $10 million year-over-year decline in revenue in Q3 2014. And finally, our revenue performance in Asia was particularly weak for all 3 groups. Revenues in nearly every region of Asia declined in the quarter and we experienced a decline in revenues from China for the first time in several quarters. The year-over-year revenue decline in our BSI groups was partially offset by strong revenue growth from our BEST division as a result of strong demand from MRI vendors…

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Thanks, Frank. I'll now provide some additional details on our Q3 2014 financial performance. On Slide 10, I show a snapshot of our Q3 2014 non-GAAP results. Total revenues were $420 million, a decrease of 4.4% from the third quarter of 2013, reflecting the impacts that Frank described earlier. Our non-GAAP operating margin of 8.6% was 220 basis points below last year, including a 40 basis point headwind from foreign exchange rates. But it was the decline in revenue that was the biggest driver of lower profitability. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.14 declined by $0.06 compared to Q3 2013. We continue to make good progress managing our working capital, with net working capital and our working capital to revenue ratio both improving approximately 10% compared to Q3 2013. A little less than half the overall improvement is the result -- or excuse me, a little more than half is the result of our various operational initiatives, while the remaining benefit comes from changes in foreign exchange rates. Turning to Slide 11, I show the revenue bridge for the third quarter of 2014. Our reported revenue decline of 4.4% reflected an organic revenue decline of 4.8%. We had a 0.8% positive effect from acquisitions, and changes in foreign exchange rates decreased our revenues by 0.4% in the quarter, primarily as a result of a stronger dollar versus the Japanese yen. From a profitability perspective, currency had a negligible effect on our EPS during the quarter. On Slide 12, I show our Q3 2014 non-GAAP operating results in more detail, our Q3 2014 non-GAAP gross margin of 44.2% and a decrease of 90 basis points on a year-over-year basis. Foreign exchange rates decreased gross margins by 20 basis points, and the remainder of the gross margin decline is primarily related to lower revenue…

Joshua S. Young

Analyst

Jamie, please assemble the Q&A roster.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Tim Evans from Wells Fargo Securities.

Timothy C. Evans - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So Frank, I guess the thing that was most surprising to me was the comment about the slowdown in the NMR market as a whole. I guess I'm curious what you see as the long-term structural growth rate in this market at this point.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes, Tim. I think the experience with the NMR markets over long time periods, over a decade and more, is that it sometimes has some of its own timing. We sometimes see 2 or 3 years of growth, sometimes we then have a year of settling or even a slight reduction as we're experiencing so far, at least year-to-date. And long-term growth rates, while the previous couple of years we had the high single-digit growth rate, the long-term growth rate for the NMR market, at least for the next few years, I would expect to be in the low- to mid-single digits.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Isaac Ro from Goldman Sachs.

Isaac Ro - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

I did want to ask a follow-up on the NMR question. Maybe if you could spend a few moments on what's going on in Asia, specifically China. And we've seen, obviously, a lot of pressure in China across the sector in this quarter. But it seems like the pullback here was more than you guys would've otherwise expected. At the same time, you have your biggest competitor, obviously, pulling out. Just maybe revisit, number one, your expectations in the short term for the NMR business in China. And then secondly, just given that you had your biggest competitor pullout, just to remind us why you feel like the structural growth trend here should rebound. It's certainly unusual to see a company -- an industry this consolidated have a second player just bow out completely.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes, Isaac. So yes, indeed. We had even 3 months ago predicted slightly stronger orders in NMR, and they just have not or not yet materialized. Some of them has materialized, but not to the extent that we had expected even 3 months ago. And clearly, Asia, Japan -- Japan as expected and China, and the rest of Asia Pacific, not necessarily expected, have been slower. We have -- we don't necessarily have complete explanations for that. And some of it may just be you deal with bigger orders, with big-ticket items, sometimes there's just some variability that doesn't necessarily have an underlying reason. As I have observed in the past, over many years, the NMR market sometimes has its own little S-curve, 2 or 3 years of good growth, a year or 2 where it settles and go sideways or maybe goes down a little bit. And we think that's what we're seeing right now. But it is not strictly related to China overall or the macroeconomic trends. And that is something that we had observed in the past as well. So some NMR idiosyncrasies, if you like. The Agilent effect, of course, didn't affect Q3, the announcement was made in early -- or in the middle of October. Clearly, it won't affect our Q4 revenue. We do expect and have already experienced, anecdotally at least, some orders that have come to us now rather quickly or -- that were perhaps not coming to us to begin with and are now coming to us after all. But so far, this is anecdotal and not quantitative. So basically we said, look, as we really just have to deal with this new set of circumstances since the middle of October and then probably, by the end of Q4, we'll have a much better feeling for what is the effect on Bruker of Agilent exiting the NMR business. And I think when we report Q4 early next year and then give guidance for 2015, we will have a more satisfying answer and could put some quantitative brackets around what we might expect. Right now, because we did not even have exact figures of what Agilent's NMR systems and upgrade revenue was, if you recall, they're keeping their service business, and obviously we'll not pick up all of that anyway, we hesitate to make estimates because we still have a pretty broad range even internally. So anecdotally, we're getting more business, but that's very recent. And when I say business, it's really just initial orders that we otherwise would not have received. But they won't be up till sometime middle of next year until they going into revenue and the magnitude is difficult to estimate for us right now.

Isaac Ro - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

That's helpful. Maybe just one quick follow-up for Charlie. I think one of the bright spots this year has been the continued improvement in free cash performance. And the company, obviously, tends to have very back-end loaded free cash flow. So would you be able to give us a range or some sense of expectations for how full year free cash will look?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Yes. It's been -- obviously, performance so far this year has been pretty good. If you recall, last year's fourth quarter was enormous. I think we generated something like $120 million of free cash flow in the fourth quarter last year. And so there is some variability in that number. Obviously, a lot will depend on what makes it into revenue versus what ends up not making it into revenue and remaining on the balance sheet from an inventory standpoint. So I'm not going to give an estimate at this point. But certainly, we're expecting for the full year to have very, very healthy growth in free cash flow.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Doug Schenkel from Cowen.

Douglas Schenkel - Cowen and Company, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So revenue's clearly not played out as expected this year. Over the first 9 months of the year, revenue increased, I think it's about $14 million year-over-year. OpEx has increased $4 million. So as we kind of think about expense control here, on one hand, it's commendable, but the other hand might suggest that there could be some link between the level of operating spend and the revenue performance. So yes, the questions here are: First, is there any concern that you may be underspending and that may be you've cut too much too quickly? And second, keeping in mind that many of the revenue challenges you've described has really is really been timing-related? And my last question about operating spend, assuming revenue growth picks up as you capture some of these delayed revenues presumably next year, are you going to have to turbo boost operating investment to keep that going?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

That's quite a range of questions and let me try to answer them, and maybe Charlie will chime in. I don't think we've cut too much too quickly. I really don't detect anything where, oh my God, we've cut back or cut to the bone in a sense that, that has an impact on our bookings generation or our revenue execution for that matter. So I think that's not the case. I think we're doing it judiciously and I think we're coming in about right with the cost cuts that we have taken so far. Obviously, we're planning further cost adjustments. In terms of timing, yes, there were a couple of these timing issues that we had pointed out for Q3. They have gotten pushed out further, so we're now not assuming that we will get these export permits for some of these Detection contracts, which we've had under our belt and in backlog for a while. We assume they're going into next year. It won't require us any additional -- significant additional capacity to execute that when they come in. They've largely been built already and we're waiting. And the same is true completely for that Rosatom pilot line that we were not able to export in Q3. And it's -- we may be able to export it in Q4, but it will not make it into revenue until next year. If it makes it into revenue at all, a little bit of uncertainty on that one. Those are the specific timing guides. I think the bigger picture of semiconductor data storage and NMR and AXS weakness to a great extent related to the semiconductor space, those are more external demand factors that we had not -- where we had been -- that had been worse than what we…

Douglas Schenkel - Cowen and Company, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

All right. So to be clear, as we think about the outlook for operating leverage heading into the year, where hopefully, the revenue trajectory picks up a little bit, even though research and development is down, it looks like it's going to be down $10 million to $15 million year-over-year this year, SG&A is going to be up, but not much more than $10 million. You still feel like with this level of investment, you can generate growth and operating leverage not years down the road, but in the near term, meaning next year?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes. I mean, we're still spending about 10% of revenue on R&D. And if anything, in some areas, we've expanded marketing and sales capabilities where we were, perhaps historically, underinvested in those areas of little bit. So I think absolutely, we can drive growth with that. But we're sourcing some -- in some of our bigger businesses. Unfortunately, we have seen some slowdown in demand in addition to some of the discrete timing issues and, of course, currency having an effect. And so we're also pushing into quite a number of adjacent, faster-growing markets. Some of that is taking off, like pre-clinical imaging. Some of that is in the very early innings, like fluorescence microscopy and isn't moving the needle that much. MALDI BioTyper is very much moving the needle. Some other moves into explosives trace detection. We're still at the very early stage. But I think we're spending the right amount of investment.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Dan Arias from Citigroup.

Daniel Anthony Arias - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Frank, as you think about the way that the business shapes up over time, how important is it at this point to sort of find a way to increase your recurring revenue streams? And I guess to the extent that, that's something you're looking to do, what avenues do you think you might go down there?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes, I think that is important and I think in some businesses, we've made decent progress there, but in just about every business. And especially some -- even some of the large ones, the Bruker BioSpin, but also other businesses. I think we -- by really focusing that on a discrete business unit within the larger division, I think we have opportunity also as I look at some of our peers that are in comparable instrumentation business to drive recurring service, upgrade, software, training, services and some consumables business. The push into diagnostics, particularly in microbiology, but eventually also in other fields, will have a higher percentage recurring revenue. We see that in the MALDI BioTyper business already. So I think that's -- while we won't become a razor, razor blade model, or even like some other half instrumentation, half consumables companies, we think we can grow this part of the business quite a bit. And I think we're taking -- and we are taking the organizational steps, for instance in Bruker BioSpin, for putting this on the very experienced dedicated management, something that in the past, we hadn't really done as -- throughout our business.

Daniel Anthony Arias - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And maybe just 2 quick follow-ups for Charlie. Charlie, on the BioSpin business, does the scope of outsourcing and what you're looking to do there change NMR with the restructuring? And I guess secondary to that is, given everything that we're seeing externally and internally, how far do you think we are away from getting some longer-term financial targets?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

So BioSpin has been busy over the last 18 months with a range of programs aimed at improving their supply chain practices. They were one of the first Bruker businesses last year to start outsourcing in a meaningful way. They're pretty far along with procurement programs, and they keep layering on new programs. So that will continue. The rightsizing that is going to occur as a result of this new demand outlook is certainly going to add to that. I think that it doesn't affect the scope of the supply chain programs that they have ongoing. In general, all our businesses are trying to look carefully at their manufacturing footprint and their supply chain practices to move our cost structure to be less fixed and more variable over time. So I think you'll continue to hear supply chain program announcements coming out of BioSpin and I don't think the rightsizing has any particular impact on that. In terms of your question about long-term targets, clearly, we are seeing a lot of variability in our results right now and we're also having some visibility challenges, and that's resulted in some guidance reductions and adjustments recently. We need -- we clearly need more time to get a better handle on the business and get a better feel on the business. So at this point, I'm not making any commitments about when we'll have midterm targets.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Derik De Bruin from Bank of America.

Derik De Bruin - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

A couple of questions. I guess, on the NMR orders, are you seeing -- is it weakness in high field that you're mostly seeing? Or is it low field? And the reason why I'm going there is I know the high field orders often have a longer delivery time, so I'm just -- so thinking about order as they go into 2015, what happens? Just give us a little bit more color on where it is? Or is this across-the-board?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

No. It was clearly in the high field area. Particularly, in the high field, we didn't get the orders from China and Japan, and Europe's steady and U.S. is not bad, but it's been particularly at the high fields.

Derik De Bruin - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

And these are instruments you would not have thought -- were these ones that you would have delivered revenues on in 2014? Or these were the things you would have delivered on in 2015?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Some. Mostly, into '15, but some 700 or 800 for structural biology, we can also deliver still -- have we gotten them in the Q1 of this year, we would've been able to still deliver this year, some of them at least. Most of them have longer delivery times, as you've correctly pointed out.

Derik De Bruin - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. So on the -- Charlie, if you sort of looked at the -- where the currency rates are right now, can you just give us just what you would think the initial impact would be on the '15 top line number as we sort of think about adjusting our models?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Yes. If you look at -- so if you just look at Q4, for example, there should be pretty much neutral, no impact year-over-year from currency. And I think if you project forward into '15, I haven't done the full analysis yet, but I think...

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Revenue and bottom.

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

I think on the bottom line, at this point, I wouldn't expect much of an impact in '15 from where we are today. Obviously, on the revenue side, it would be a pretty significant headwind. And -- so looking at Q4 might be a reasonable proxy for 2015.

Derik De Bruin - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst

Great. And I guess, you -- could you talk about a little bit about the mass spec competitive landscape? I mean, it sounds like you're having some -- you're seeing some issues there as well. Could you just talk about pricing, people with new products, just a little about the dynamics in the market, and then I'll get off?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Okay, Derik. I think we're doing well with the Q-TOF products. We've obviously really refreshed that product line and -- throughout the year and have seen decent growth year-to-date in that one. I mean, by all means -- it definitely remains the competitive space and a sought-after space, and essentially all major competitors with one product or the other going after that. But I think we're doing well there. The MALDI Biotyper continues to see very good growth throughout the year and we think that will actually continue for quite a while. We had acknowledged in the past that the other applications of MALDI-TOF are flat or down so far year-to-date. And also, to some extent last year, as MALDI-TOF is getting into new applied markets, like MALDI -- like clinical microbiology and plays a role in MALDI imaging, it's rolled in proteomics. It's clearly the secondary tool and it is still needed, but it is not the primary tool for proteomics anymore. So even though in the last few years, we became a pretty clear #1 in MALDI-TOF for the research applications, its growth had been sluggish, whereas the ramp-up has been in QTOF technology and in the MALDI BioTyper clinical microbiology.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Tycho Peterson from JPMorgan. Tycho W. Peterson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Just a question on kind of going back to some of the leverage discussion on the pacing of some of the initiatives, in particular for SG&A. As Doug mentioned earlier, that was up $1.00 amount year-over-year. Charlie, you highlighted some of the ERP initiatives. You highlighted senior hires. I guess, as we think about next year, will SG&A be down an absolute dollar amount? I mean, obviously getting rid of CAM and the ICP-MS business helps. So how -- I mean, how should we think about the absolute level of SG&A spending going forward, baking in, obviously, the BioSpin cost-reduction program, too?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Yes. Tycho, again, I'm not going to model out the '15 P&L just yet. You're absolutely correct that rightsizing in BioSpin and CAM going away are going to have a pretty significant effect on OpEx next year. Obviously, we have investments in other growing businesses. As Frank commented earlier, there's not going to be any need for us to have some sort of surge in spending to make up for any of the cuts or controls that we've had in place in the past. So I'm going to hold off on guiding to that, though, until we've looked at the whole P&L. Tycho W. Peterson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Maybe put another way. Have you incurred the bulk of the ERP costs this year in the senior management hires?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Okay. So good question. From a senior management hire, yes. I would say that obviously that, obviously, there's always puts and takes, but I think that's done. ERP, importantly, the spending on the financial systems is going to tail into next year a little bit, but it's not a significant number and therefore, should represent a year-over-year decrease. On the ERP, importantly, we have -- that's in the line item called IT transformation cost, and it's part of our non-GAAP reconciliation. So that number -- the investments there in ERP are actually not hitting the non-GAAP OpEx number, and you can see that in the reconciliation. Tycho W. Peterson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And then how about R&D leverage? I mean, if we think about NMR going into a monopoly, are there other opportunities to potentially get a little bit more leverage on R&D?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Well, I think we've been pushing for R&D leverage in bringing down R&D in almost all of our businesses without really sacrificing our investments into either new and improved products or solutions on -- based on those technologies for adjacent or other markets. And that has to do with PLC processes and efficiency, and I think we're really making a lot of progress there. So if R&D spending has come down from 11%, 12%, maybe 13% historically towards the 10% range, I'm very satisfied with that. But I don't think we're shortchanging our ability to drive -- to be competitive and to rekindle growth. In terms of leverage, I think there'll be some ongoing leverage in R&D as well. So I think this -- there might be further slight leveraging in the next 2 or 3 years. I think that's to be expected, but I don't expect it to be a big drop or something like that again with reserving to give you better -- a better feel for that in February when we announce Q4 and give you 2015 guidance. But some incremental R&D leveraging is to be expected. Tycho W. Peterson - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: And then last one. You mentioned Techcomp has the opportunity on the GC service business. Can you maybe just quantify that for us? And what are the implications in -- you said it was profitable if they do acquire that?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

It is approximately -- revenues are in the range of $10 million to $15 million, yes. And if we divest it to them, one could model it that we might divest it by the middle of the year, but that's hard to say. Of course, it's actually they're driving the timing. It could be earlier. It could be as late as in the fall. And of course, they have an option. So strictly speaking, if they were not to exercise that option, then we would continue to run with that service business.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Dan Leonard from Leerink.

Daniel L. Leonard - Leerink Swann LLC, Research Division

Analyst

How quickly could any benefit from the Agilent, NMR exit impact your P&L given that the lead times in that business vary quite a bit by product?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes, most -- it could begin to phase in a little bit of Q2 of next year and then really more so in Q3 and Q4. For once -- and Derik was hinting at that earlier with his question. It's not they would be any ultra-high field orders that we would be getting from Agilent because they had exited that part of the business a year earlier, if you recall. So the types of products, the types of bookings that we might begin to pick up from them in the fourth quarter and into next year, they might, on average, have something like a 6-month lead time to revenue.

Daniel L. Leonard - Leerink Swann LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Got it. And Frank, how are you thinking about the pricing opportunity in NMR?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Well, I mean, I think even before this announcement, there has been a big push by us and, in most cases, not always, but in most cases, we think even by Agilent to have more rational pricing and -- or discount. So in NMR, it's not so much the price list or prices going up. But historically, there had been, in some cases, just very aggressive discounting and I think that may abate quite a bit.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Willoughby from Cleveland Research.

Steve Willoughby - Cleveland Research Company

Analyst

Two things. One, I guess, first, on the guidance, Charlie. You made a comment that there's a wider range for the fourth quarter and then you made a comment regarding some larger BioSpin projects that could fall in the fourth quarter. I was just wondering, those larger BioSpin projects, are those assumed within your guidance? Or would you need those to come in, in order to get to the high end of your guidance?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes. If you -- obviously, the guidance is roughly plus-or-minus $15 million and at the high end of that would -- the implication would be that a couple of orders would ship or would revenue in the fourth quarter. If they slip out, obviously, we push this towards the lower end.

Steve Willoughby - Cleveland Research Company

Analyst

Okay. And then just secondly regarding restructurings. I know you guys did restructuring programs in 2013. How much restructuring has there been in 2014 outside of the CAM restructuring? Because I'm just trying to think about a go-forward impact. It had some restructuring benefit from the restructuring you did in 2013, the restructuring that you're going to do with CAM. This new restructuring with the BioSpin, it sounds like maybe a little bit in BMAT as well. Are there other restructuring going on in 2014 that could possibly impact 2015?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Yes. If you -- last year, I think the restructuring number in the reconciliation was about $26 million, $27 million for the year. The biggest pieces of that last year would have been associated with BioSpin supply chain initiatives, so outsourcing and machine shop divestitures, that sort of thing, and then a very significant third and fourth quarter rightsizing in the BMAT business. So most of last year's restructuring charges were BioSpin and BMAT. This year's number is mostly CAM with a little bit of the tail end of some of those BioSpin and BMAT initiatives from last year. And then based on the comments that we've made tonight, you'd expect that the next significant restructuring charge would be around BioSpin rightsizing. It could be as early as Q4, but more likely, it's Q1 of 2015. And so aside from those, I mean, there's always a little bit -- even in some of the other businesses and elemental and other places we've smaller restructuring initiatives, they just don't rise to the level of materiality of the programs that I've outlined there.

Daniel L. Leonard - Leerink Swann LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. When you think about the benefit from those restructurings, I know you talked about you've quantified the CAM restructuring, I believe you quantified the 2013 restructuring, is there any other ways to quantify the benefit, the run rate benefit you should expect to receive?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

When we commented on last year, the restructuring activity resulted in about 300 employees leaving, either it's rightsizing or joining some of our partners and we talked about benefits of $15 million to $20 million this year. If you look at our year-to-date operating margins there, they're down 30 basis points or so, but that's with the 90-basis-point headwind from currencies. So net of that, up about 60%. So I think you're seeing some benefit there. The -- this year's restructuring charges mostly are CAM, and we've commented on the kind of the run rate or the annualized benefit from that phasing in, in the first half of next year. And then obviously, if we're going to announce a new restructuring or rightsizing effort around BioSpin, we'll absolutely quantify the expected benefits from that.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Weber from Evercore ISI.

Vijay Kumar - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

This is actually Vijay, in for Ross. Now Frank, I guess a lot of questions in NMR and I just want to maybe shift to -- towards BMAT. And again, pretty weak results out there. But can you tell us what's happening in those markets? And AFM has been weak and sort of -- if you had to look at some of those macro data points and try to correlate what happens to growth in that segment, how should we be thinking about it on a go-forward basis?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes. So starting with the second part of your question, actually, the BNS division. AFM and their other product lines have really done quite reasonably and they've seen some decent growth and they've seen some building order momentum, especially in Q3 and we think into Q4, but they clearly have a lot less semiconductor and data storage, call it, microelectronics revenue so far this year overall. It's going to change a little bit in Q4, but I think they've seen some reasonably healthy trends in everything other than microelectronics at BNS. So AFM is healthy. Bio AFM is growing. Their fast scan products of -- are working. Their fluorescence microscopy ramp-up is happening. But also some of the tribology and other white light interferometry and other industrial products are picking up, except for data storage and -- data storage in semiconductor is not insignificant for them in terms of revenue. But it also has, when it comes through, it has some of the best margins in that business. So it's -- that's why so far, this year, they've been 2 different trends unfortunately, more or less, offsetting each other with, I think, good bookings momentum building to where BNS, I think, will do better in next year. AXS and elemental, the first part of your question, they are seeing also AXS only. The semiconductor, they've been a lot of R&D in the last couple of years, had some fantastic x-ray semiconductor tools now that we think will -- eventually, that investment will pay off, but we're bringing them now to market at a time when not a lot of people are buying. But fundamentally, we actually don't regret having made that decision. We think there will be the time when we will benefit from these rather unique tools that hit the -- that are coming in at a point where the semiconductor technology trends and roadmaps will really need them. The other industrial market, there are some strength in -- cement and so on is strong, but metals prices are down worldwide, and that's affecting any metals analysis business, but it also is affecting minerals and mining. So there is a second industrial trend that these 2 businesses, also elemental in AXS. It is weakness in metals pricing, and that has a number of repercussions in it in various analysis markets.

Vijay Kumar - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

That was very helpful, Frank. And maybe one quick one for Charlie, if I may. I know that you guys mentioned about sort of the ERP investments and the restructuring. And I'm not asking for what the benefit is, but I guess if you had to sort of look at how some of these actions could help you sort of predict the business very right. We've had these up periods where you experienced volatility. Charlie, do you feel like any of the actions that you've been taking, like this might help you better predict the business on a go-forward basis?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Well, we certainly are -- feel like we've made improvements in our management process and are continuing to make improvements on the commercial side of the business. That said, we clearly are having a harder time with visibility right now. So I do believe that cumulatively, over time, these process improvements are going to yield benefits in terms of visibility. But at the moment, that doesn't show.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

I'll give you a historical perspective. We did predict 3 months ago that we would have a weak Q3. Okay, there were some trends that we couldn't -- that we didn't capture. But 2 or 3 years ago, it would've been difficult for us to predict that at that time.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Amanda Murphy from William Blair. Amanda Murphy - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Just a couple more on NMR, sorry, but -- so with Agilent, I guess, a question on kind of the benefits from the fact that they exited the high field market previously. Is that something that maybe was impacting you to the positive and now is rolling off? And then just second on Agilent. I know it's sort of early days, but have you had a chance to maybe reach out to any of your customers and see what the view is there? Just -- obviously, they're keeping services, but maybe there's a potential opportunity for you to capture some of their current installed base as well?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

So Amanda, 2 parts. I think they coincidentally perhaps dropped out when the -- in fact, the high field demand the following year or so wasn't that strong. So we have not benefited as much from them dropping out of high field a year ago and capturing the orders because that segment of the market was a little bit weaker. There still are some high field orders, and that's been good. But as you know, high field is less than 10%. And maybe with associated orders, associated systems that go through, less than 15%. Now we're talking about the entire market. That's a bigger deal. And we have been talking to a lot of their customers, and they've been talking to us, of course, and we have a lot of customers that actually have both Bruker and Agilent vary in equipment, and a lot of them had been contacting us because they're obviously concerned. And so anecdotally, I can tell you that a number of -- we've picked up some business already from some of those customers. And some of them are longer-term looking, how can they get funding to upgrade to some newer capabilities? And NMR system, it's usually not good enough to just keep it serviced and running. You almost buy these systems with an implication that you will need software and probe upgrades, and you probably keep the magnet the longest, that you need console upgrades, as we call them, during the life time of the magnet. So a lot of customers are taking a pretty systematic look at that now, but it's early days for them. And it certainly haven't been able to raise the funding yet to do something about it. We think that will happen, but we really cannot estimate and put even pretty good brackets around what the amount will be. We think we'll have a much better read on that when we report Q4. But there's a lot of activity. Amanda Murphy - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Got it. And then just a higher-level question on some of the comments you've made about a resurgence of demand. And obviously, the market is cyclical to some degree. But in terms of what drives incremental demand or growth, I mean, presumably, there's the adjacent market piece of it, but also server replacement cycle, if you will, in NMR. So I guess I'm just curious. If you think about the entire installed base, and obviously, you have a big chunk of that already, but is there a way to think about just aging across the installed base in terms of how that might be impacting the growth now and maybe how that might drive growth in the future? Just thinking about replacement cycles.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Absolutely. There's a way to think about it and we're trying to model all of that right now. Obviously, without perfect information on their installed base, we can make some -- we have to make some assumptions there. And we -- there clearly will be replacement cycles, often not so much driven by the systems breakdown because the engine just can't do any more miles, but very often driven by the need for improved capabilities and upgrades that are now no longer available as we understand it from Agilent. I think it is going strictly to repair and replacements for broken parts. So I think there will be some healthy trends for us. It's difficult to quantify them right now. We have, of course, theories internally, but we need to really get some real evidence in the next 3 months and before we report and give you some ranges in early 2015.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bryan Brokmeier from Maxim Group.

Bryan Brokmeier - Maxim Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you're seeing one of the highlights continues to be strong growth from the MALDI Biotyper. Is that growth coming in the U.S. for the most part? Or are you continuing to see growth in Europe and Japan, and if you're starting to see growth in China?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes. No, we've seen -- we've continued to see good growth worldwide. Certainly, and I don't know by looking in the year-to-date to the first 9 months, which has always means more than any given quarter. I think we had a bit of a bolus in China in Q2 and that was weaker in Q3. But I think you have to average these things out. So there's been good growth in the United States, there's been good growth in Asia and there's continued moderate growth in Europe as well. And of course, also the consumables and aftermarket business, it's -- including service, is growing very, very nicely and much faster than the systems business, in fact. But the strongest growth have been in North America.

Bryan Brokmeier - Maxim Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And the BioTyper, that still requires blood culturing, right? What could be done in order to take the culturing out of the workflow?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

I don't know that anybody really wants to take the culture out of the workflow because it's such an important biological viability filter. When you just go to PCR without any culture, you don't know what you're amplifying, whether it's a viable mechanism, whether it's junk DNA or other DNA floating around. A lot of people think that really going away from cultures altogether will be a big mistake and as a results might be very unreliable.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Eric Criscuolo from Mizuho.

Eric Criscuolo - Mizuho Securities USA Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just filling in for Peter tonight. I guess, it sounds like you're going to have a couple of headwinds in the fourth quarter, be they FX or weaker Asia or NMR. So I was just kind of wondering if you can maybe quantify or at least rank kind of how they're going to -- or the biggest to the smallest impacts in the fourth quarter that you see right now?

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

Well, currency year-over-year could take 4 percentage points off. So that alone is a pretty significant driver on the revenue line, of course. As we've pointed out, it should be neutral to EPS but significant at the revenue line.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Okay. And will bring down -- come down by about $10 million.

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

That's right. Yes.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

So those are the 2 biggest.

Charles F. Wagner

Analyst

And then continued softness in...

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Spend and demand.

Eric Criscuolo - Mizuho Securities USA Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Got you. Okay. And then just on the restructuring, the additional restructuring that you're likely to do in BioSpin. I was wondering if you could maybe compare not necessarily the big dollar amounts that are involved, but maybe just kind of the efforts that you'll need to maybe get this done or what you expect to get done versus what you've done last year and up to this point this year. I mean, is it easier programs that are -- that you're going to tackle? Or are these things kind of harder to implement? I just kind of want to see how -- what type of effort you might have to make going forward for this?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

I mean, the effort is nowhere close to what we're doing in CAM. Of course, BioSpin being, by and large, a beautiful business, doesn't require the major restructuring that we did in CAM. I mean, that's not even close. What we did in AXS a year ago and in elemental in OpEx rightsizing, it's work. And it's quite a bit of work. It takes a couple of 2 to 3 quarters, but I think that may be comparable.

Operator

Operator

And our final question today comes from Paul Knight from Janney Capital Markets.

Bryan Kipp - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

It's Brian Kipp in behalf of Paul. Just 2 quick follow-up on Tycho's service question for the GC business. If Techcomp doesn't exercise that and it goes through -- you guys still have to hold the business, do you roll it down to discontinued operations at some point? And in addition to that, how long do some of the service agreement last for?

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

So definitely not going to discontinued operations. We would continue to offer that for a long period of time. And I mean, that's the ballpark figure. Typically, equipment like this one tends to offer service for about 7 years or so after it's been purchased. But in some cases, longer.

Bryan Kipp - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Analyst

And then another follow-up, one right here. I think you cite during the PowerPoint a focus on new entry into new growth markets. I think there was some conversation earlier about potential consumable offerings. I just wanted to get some color there if it's new products that you guys are looking to emerge into or to build up? Is it new geographies you're looking to penetrate? Just some color there would be helpful.

Frank H. Laukien

Analyst

Yes, I think geographically, we're in all the markets more or less that we want to be in with some incremental changes, but it's -- geography is not driver here. It's really adjacent markets. It's more diagnostics and clinical research. It's more applied markets, both for NMR and mass spec, for instance. In some other fields, they are actually -- we're expanding some of what we expect to do in microelectronics in the future. We think there's some very nice opportunities. We just need the cycle to come back a little bit. There are things to -- all the way to explosives trace detection. So it's really adjacent markets and adjacent fields that so far -- that we think we can leverage our products into. It's not really a geographical component that's significant.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I'm showing no additional questions. I'd like to turn the conference call back over for any closing remarks.

Joshua S. Young

Analyst

Thank you, Jamie. I want to thank everybody for joining us this evening. And we encourage you to visit us at our headquarters in Billerica, Massachusetts. Thank you for your attention, and have a nice night.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your telephone lines.