Earnings Labs

CONMED Corporation (CNMD)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 27, 2016

$36.69

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, let me remind you that during this call, management will be making comments and statements regarding its financial outlook, which represents forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as those terms are defined under the federal securities laws. The company's actual results may differ materially from its current expectations. Please refer to the risk factors and other cautionary factors in today's press release as well as the company's SEC filings for more details on factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. You will also hear management refer to certain non-GAAP adjusted measurements during this discussion. While these figures are not a substitute for GAAP measurements, management will use these figures to aid in monitoring the company's ongoing financial performance from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year on a regular basis and for benchmarking against other medical technology companies. Adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share measure the income of the company, excluding credits or charges that are considered by the company to be special or outside its normal ongoing operations. These adjusting items are specified in the reconciliation in the press release issued this afternoon. With these required announcements completed, I will turn the call over to Curt Hartman, CONMED's President and Chief Executive Officer, for opening remarks. Mr. Hartman? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Karen. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for CONMED's first quarter 2016 earnings call. With me on the call is Luke Pomilio, CONMED's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today, I'll provide a brief overview of the financial and operating highlights for the quarter. Luke will then provide a more detailed analysis of our financial performance and an overview of our fiscal 2016 financial guidance. After that, we'll open…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Kristen Stewart from Deutsche Bank.

Kristen Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to go over SurgiQuest again, with the $12.7 million in sales this quarter and just kind of discuss, I believe what you're saying in terms of the weightings for SurgiQuest and kind of the dynamics in the quarter because that's – was definitely more than what I was modeling, expecting, given the close and given the fact that they had a larger fourth quarter than expected and just kind of talk through that. Because It's definitely was a pretty good number, and I'm just surprised you kept guidance of 55% to 60%. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure, and thanks for joining the call, Kristen. Great place to start. We're excited by the SurgiQuest transaction and the outcomes in the first quarter. As we built our models obviously, we were estimating on close date, and in this scenario, we were able to close early in January – January 4, in fact. And they did have a big December, and that really was reflected in the early start in the quarter with a slow January, which was also hampered by what I would just call the typical integration effort, sales force training – extensive sales force training, and bringing the organization underneath the CONMED umbrella, but once we got the organization out into the street and into the defined territories and recall now that that sailing (23:55) organization in the U.S. is north of 100 people. The market acceptance of this technology was really building under SurgiQuest and we were able to keep that momentum going and they didn't close everything at the end of last year. So, there were some deals out there that we were still able to close and then some other activity we were able to pick up. And outside of the U.S., it was a little bit slower. We really couldn't touch the international markets until the date of the transaction closing because they were going through distributors, but momentum built there very quickly as we got into the late February-March timeframe. So, we wind up with a good quarter, about $12.7 million as we noted and we're excited by that start. That said, I still think it's a little bit early to talk about raising the estimates and the reason I say that is there's still integration work going on that always raises potential hiccups and candidly, there's still a lot of work outside the U.S. as Pat and his team moved the business through the distributors, get tighter relationships with these existing distributors and as I noted in two markets, work on that direct presence. So, I think, we're comfortable with the start. We're excited about the technology and the platform and what it can do for us. But probably a little bit early for us to be taking the numbers up.

Kristen Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. It's a really great start. I was wondering if you could just maybe talk through the underlying organic number for the company, I guess, it was down 2.2% if I take out SurgiQuest and maybe just walk through that, because that was a little bit weaker. Is that or I guess, was that in line with your view and I guess, if not, what were some of the major contributing factors for that... Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Kristen...

Kristen Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

...was it just simply integration of SurgiQuest, maybe a little bit of a distraction there? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Great question, and I think as you think about our underlying organic growth, there were two areas that really hindered us, within General Surgery, the Advanced Surgical businesses where the SurgiQuest platform went and that business' underlying organic growth was very weak in the first quarter, and it was somewhat in line with what we had anticipated. Number one, because we had the sales force out of the field for a greater than expected amount of time given all the training that we wanted to accomplish. And number two, we knew that the sales reps would inherently gravitate to the new object which is a very innovative, exciting platform. So, the underlying organic growth in Advanced Surgical was hindered by that, we also candidly had some back order issues that we're remediating and then hope to ship out of us as we get into the second quarter. And finally, we had some quality issues that cost us to stub our toe a little bit, all occurring within that Advanced Surgical business both in the U.S., but those last couple impacting international as well. On the international side, it was just kind of a soft quarter across the board for capital as we called out in scripted comments. And then, I think one thing that we thought maybe we could close a little bit earlier and see better results was the distribution agreement in Japan that I mentioned in my script and we've got great distributors in Japan. But as – as rightfully they should be, those negotiations were tough. Our team did a great job. There – the distributors did a great job and we struck a very amicable relationship. But it took essentially the entire quarter to get that done and when you're in the middle of the those negotiations, orders are not going to be placed. So, that hampered us, and that might have taken us a little bit lower on the organic side than we would have liked. So, those are probably the two main things I'd point to.

Kristen Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. Thanks very much. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Matt O'Brien from Piper Jaffray. J. P. McKim - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Hi. Good afternoon. This is actually J.P. in for Matt. Thanks for taking the question. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks for being on. J. P. McKim - Piper Jaffray & Co. (Broker): Yeah. The first one, I guess, I'll dig into the international market, specifically on the capital sales side of it. Do you think it was more of just a macro environment going on over there, or do you think you still have some kind of work to do on the distributor side, or maybe need to go direct in more countries? Just some color there would be helpful. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a great question, and it's a little bit of both, to be honest with you. Two of our great international markets are Canada and Australia, and in the first quarter 2015, they both had really big quarters, sold a lot of capital, that performance did not repeat in the first quarter this year, so part of it was an internal issue. Beyond that, obviously, the capital in international that goes through export was limited, because we still have some challenges in the export markets, Middle East, as I mentioned in my scripted comments along with the China. A year ago we sold video in China, this year there were zero dollars in the first quarter for us, video in China. And that's really driven by the crackdown on healthcare as they tighten up the reform policies there. So, it's a little bit macro, it's a little bit internal. But looking at our forecast, we think we see a…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Mike Matson from Needham & Company. Mike S. Matson - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. So I guess, the guidance obviously implies a pretty big ramp or a pretty heavy weighting to the second half of the year. It reminds me a little bit of last year and that didn't turn out so well. So, I guess, what – can you just walk me through the various things that give you confidence that you can actually see this acceleration in your revenue growth in the second half of the year. What are the various kind of factors, new products, et cetera, that you expect to really drive that? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure, Mike. I think it's a couple of things. Number one, it starts with people and the leader is not only my team, but the leaders at the business level, the sales, the marketing leaders, the sales management, the entirety of the amount of change there and the now time enrolled (33:32) that those people have, their clarity on what needs to be changed, that work is well underway, if not already done and we've just got a stable base of new leaders, who are pushing each and every day that a year ago, we didn't have quite the same level of visibility and visibility grows every day as you get people in the chair a little bit longer. Number two, we have a much broader offering of products, that we're bringing to market, most of which that I spoke about in the previous question, we've already introduced. Yet as we look further into the second through fourth quarters, there are other products still in development…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Richard Newitter from Leerink Partners.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thank you for taking the question. It's Ravi in for Rich. Can you hear me, okay? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We can Ravi.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. So, I wanted to follow up a little bit on some of the questions that already been asked. Regarding the new product launches at SAGES and AAOS, you put forth a number of new products coming out. I was hoping you could he me understand in terms of you have a bunch coming in Orthopedics and then – that were announced at AAOS and a bunch at SAGES. How do we think of sort of the impact from a segment level? You've guided more towards a second half-weighted year, would you see more of an impact, do you think, in Orthopedic surgery with sort the General Surgery pushed out a little bit further towards the back half of the year until 2017 or is the cadence on that something else? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. It's a great question and I think the cadence will be the Orthopedics organization both U.S. and internationally will continue to improve starting in the second quarter. Academy was earlier this year, it takes time to ramp up, get sales samples out, get in front our physicians (39:05) for trials, but in Orthopedics, that work has been ongoing now. Whereas in the Advanced Surgical side, which is one business of General Surgery, AirSeal obviously consumed a lot of the first quarter, even though we introduced Healix late. Healix was a big capital item and that takes longer to get in to market, to training, evaluations, customer experience and win capital orders. So I see the Advanced Surgical portion of General Surgery, the biggest portion, having a little bit longer uptake on the new product side. And importantly and I mentioned it in my opening, in the Endoscopic Technologies business, we introduced the new products in Q1, first new product they've had. We've got more coming. And that sales force in the U.S. has really picked that up and ran with it as you would expect when you give a team something new that hasn't had one in a while and they're able to make a pretty quick impact. And so we're excited about that coupled with items like Healix helping to grow the General Surgery category, but again a little bit longer to get the capital out, which is much bigger dollar item than some of the things we've introduced in Endoscopic Technologies. So kind of second quarter onward for Orthopedics and more third quarter in General Surgery, could be sooner but that's just kind of how I see it right now.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks. And then maybe a couple of follow-ups on that. Going to your Visualization business, one of your competitors have been talking about their sort of integrated camera and OR suite. Is there something in your -I mean, 4% U.S. sales was I think a little bit worse than we had expected for the first quarter. Is there anything – now that the camera launch anniversaried last year, what do you guys need to do to sort of regain momentum in that segment? Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So when you talk about Visualization, CONMED has a great brand, the Linvatec camera system is long established in the market. It's a great brand. The brand was damaged and it was damaged because of a lack of new product innovation. And fortunately, at the end of 2014 or early 2015, we got the first new camera the company had put out in seven years. So, we're doing a lot of heavy lifting to reestablish our self as a video entrant in the market. That's the general statement. Outside of the U.S., we have a couple of markets that are pretty good with video. But largely, our international team needs to do a better job understanding and selling video. And then, another general comment on video is it's a multi-specialty device, it's not a pure orthopedic device. And when hospitals make purchases, they want to talk about multi-specialty purpose for video systems and we have not been real good at that as well. So, there's a lot going on within CONMED to address the long-term outlook on video. It's not going to mysteriously get better overnight and it is a lot of hard work at the ground level. And then second, I think the market is saying, great, you came out with a new camera. What are you going to do for me next? And that's on us on the inside on R&D standpoint to continue to show the market we're going to innovate. And those are all the different lines we're running down to reinvigorate our Visualization line and be a better participant in a market that we think is an attractive market and fits in well with the rest of our business, both on the Orthopedic, Sports Medicine side, but also in the General Surgery side. So, we've got a lot of work to do here. It started with the new camera and it starts with getting more emphasis from management added across to our businesses.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Thanks. And then, maybe if I could sneak in a couple more. Just one on SurgiQuest and then one on the P&L. With SurgiQuest, I guess it's roughly $12.7 million sales, does that include sort of any SurgiQuest-specific disruption? In other words, could that have been higher given the timing and the integration that's been going on? And then on the second one, Luke, maybe on the FX and the earnings guidance, you brought down the headwind about $8 million. I'm just wondering if you could confirm or walk me through the math in terms of the impact on the bottom line. I'm getting to about an $0.08 negative impact, is that right? And if so, can you just reconcile that with your guidance and in your earnings – your EPS raise and how much of the component of the EPS raise is associated with foreign exchange? Thanks. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, on SurgiQuest, was their disruptions are the (44:05) $12.7 million. I mean they – we commented that they had a very strong December, which you would expect, but that was probably partially offset or further impacted by the amount of training we did. That said, it still requires a lot of end market evaluation and we had a much bigger sales force going after the market than what SurgiQuest has. So, you talk about our range of $55 million to $60 million kind of a straight-line staircase 12, 14, 16, 18 gets you to $60 million. I'm not telling anybody on the call that that's exactly how this is going to play out, but that is the way to think about it as it relates. And you've got to think about it in the components of U.S. versus international. Last year…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Matt Mishan from KeyBanc.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: You bet.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

I just wanted to start on the gross margin and just want to make sure I'm looking at this right. On that, I think 55.2% ex the amortization and I think last quarter, Luke, you had indicated that you were going to try and get up to 54% for the year. And so, it looks like the gross margins are actually coming in higher than you would have thought. What are some of the moving pieces around that in the quarter and is that – I'm I looking at it right to where the gross margins maybe a little bit stronger this year than you would have thought coming in? Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. I think the gross margins are up at the higher end of what we thought. So coming to the year, we knew that we had 140 basis point impact negative from currency in the – and that's what we realized. In the current quarter, we had a 300 basis point favorable impact from production variances and candidly that was a little better than what I had anticipated. Offsetting favorability was also some mix at around 40 basis points, so that's how we ended up at the first quarter number. I think most of those factors should hold true as we look forward, and the change in currencies to our benefit should provide a slight tailwind as well that could be as much as 50 basis points. So, I think as we look out for our target for the year, 54.5% to 55.5% is where I'm hoping to get to.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then, on SurgiQuest, I think most – looking at the first quarter numbers, you're probably feeling fairly confident about the $55 million to $60 million, but I was just curious how confident you remain in the double-digit accretion guidance for SurgiQuest. Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: As Curt said, I think it's early to talk about raising numbers, but we're pleased with where we ended up the first quarter from a sales perspective. From a margin standpoint, we were where we expected to be and our cost structure that is in place already is right where we expected to be. So, I feel really good about finishing the year from a SurgiQuest standpoint exactly where we hope to be.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Cohen from Ladenburg Thalmann. Jeffrey S. Cohen - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): Oh, hi. Thanks for taking the questions. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Jeff. Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Jeff. Jeffrey S. Cohen - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): I was hoping you could draw down a little bit firstly into the SG&A line and talk about that, and how's the percentage of revenues versus sales expense and what got tacked on from the SurgiQuest acquisition, and was the fair amount of that one-time in nature or training in the size of the new sales force at least in General Surgery or Advanced Surgery and how that might look going forward. I know that Luke also had some general comments about that. Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. So, we had talked about adding for SurgiQuest 22% to 25% of sales for the year, and that's in fact what we did. We're in that range. I think the other things that are impacting the GAAP numbers is clearly the SurgiQuest amortization. Now, as I talked about in my scripted comment, that number came in lower, but it is impacting our GAAP number. From a non-GAAP number, that number's being pulled out. So, I think SurgiQuest is right in line with where we expected to be from an SG&A standpoint. Jeffrey S. Cohen - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): So on a revenue percentage, you'd expect that SG&A line to be relatively flat to where we are now. Luke A. Pomilio - Executive Vice President-Finance & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. So for the quarter, on…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I would like to turn the conference back over to CONMED management for any additional comments. Curt R. Hartman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Karen. Thank you everybody for your time today. And appreciate you coming along for the ride on the CONMED story and we look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call, which will be held on July 27, 2016. Thank you.