Robert S. Weiss
Analyst · Kim Gailun from JPMorgan
Thank you, Kim, and good afternoon, everyone. A few second quarter financial highlights. Another solid quarter. I'm very pleased with the results: top line growth of 11%; GAAP earnings per share of $1.52, up 36% versus the prior year; non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.50 is up $0.38 or 34%; and financial -- or free cash flow was $77.4 million, which means our trailing 12-month free cash flow is $243 million. Some highlights and key events. Our silicone hydrogel family of soft contact lenses continues to show strong growth, and our recently announced launch of MyDay, our branded single-use silicone hydrogel lens, should continue our momentum for many years to come. We recently announced our planned exit from Aime, our noncore lens and lens care business in Japan. Aime came with our purchase of War Wai's [ph] supply control of raw materials for silicone hydrogel family of products and the selling rights for Biofinity in Japan. Biofinity has been a stellar success in Japan, up 2.5x above the prior year's second quarter in constant currency. Overall, our silicone hydrogel family worldwide is up 31% in constant currency and accounts for 43% of CooperVision's revenue. For the most recent calendar quarter, we grew 3x the market growth of 4%. Our gross margin percent for the quarter achieved over 66%, deriving an operating income margin of 21%. Strong free cash flow during the quarter allowed us to delever our debt-to-total-cap to only 12%. On sales results, our second quarter -- during the second quarter, our silicone hydrogel family continued to drive our top line and our bottom line results. Silicone hydrogel revenues were $134 million. The halo effect of Biofinity Toric in Japan continues. In Japan, Biofinity constant currency sales are up over 2.5x the prior year second quarter. The relaunch of Avaira Toric is also continuing its halo effect on Avaira 2-week family of products where during the second quarter, we were -- they were up over 50% versus the prior year in constant currency. Following our successful private label rollout of single-use silicone, we have now recently announced our launch of MyDay, our branded single-use silicone hydrogel lens. We expect this newest addition to our silicone hydrogel family of soft contact lenses to help continue our silicone hydrogel revenue growth momentum for many years to come. Geographically, foreign exchange headwinds continue, reducing our CooperVision revenues by 4% in the quarter. Excluding foreign exchange, CooperVision constant currency growth was 11%. Last year it was the euro and this year it's the yen, which at recent exchange rates is down almost 30% from the high of JPY 77 per dollar. With over $200 million of revenue in Japan, this is not only impacting our revenue but also negatively impacting our gross margin percent as well as our operating income margins. But even with this nuisance on the strength of our product lines, we are putting up solid numbers. From a revenue perspective, regionally, we have put up solid constant currency growth in all locations. America is up 12%, Europe up 8% constant currency and Asia-Pacific up 13%. And overall, as I mentioned, 11%. Our growth drivers are: In the Americas, trading up to the Biofinity -- trading up to Biofinity, including the halo effect of Biofinity Multifocal, with the entire family doing well. Also, while off of a much smaller base, Proclear 1 Day in the Avaira Toric and family are significant contributors. In Europe right now, currency isn't a big factor. During our -- driving our 8% constant currency growth in this region is the entire Biofinity family and 1 Days, including single-use silicone. In Asia-Pac, while foreign exchange took its toll in revenues, our constant currency revenue was up 13%. Drivers: the tremendous success of Biofinity family, in Japan with the halo effect of Biofinity Toric, as well as Proclear 1 Day and single-use torics. The worldwide soft contact lens market in the first quarter of 2013 was up 4% in constant currency, while CooperVision was up 12% during the same time period. For the trailing 12-month ended March 31, the soft contact lens market, now $7.2 billion worldwide, was up 4% in constant currency. CooperVision was up 11% on the strength of Biofinity, Proclear 1 Day and Avaira. For the calendar quarter, the market growth was sponsored by 1 Day. While CLI or Contact Lens has stopped reporting the growth of silicone hydrogel material, most likely this trade-up material remains solid growth material. CooperVision was up 31% in constant currency in the fiscal second quarter of 2013, and that CooperVision silicone hydrogel now represents 43% of our revenues. The soft contact lens market continues to be a trade-up market. This includes 2 premium products: silicone hydrogel lenses, torics and multifocals. A trade up to 1 Day disposables expands patient revenue by 400% to 600%. Even more important, the 1 Day wear generates 300% to 500% more profit. Also, it's important to understand that toric and multifocal have long -- have a long way to go in capturing the market opportunity, especially outside the United States. Geographically, the strength of the Americas' plus 6% and trading up to 1 Days has been driving the market. Overall, the market was up 4% for the quarter and trailing 12 months. Our expectations remain for the market to grow 4% to 6% continuing -- and CooperVision continuing to gain market share. CooperSurgical, our worldwide franchise, turned -- our women's healthcare franchise, turned in $75 million in revenue, up 32% versus the prior year's second quarter, on the strength of a $20 million revenue contribution from Origio, our IVF acquisition of a year ago. We are pleased with our IVF integration activities. Our IVF or global fertility products were up over 10% organically versus the prior year period. Overall, the medical device market, including OB/GYN offices, are in transition, with considerable consolidation of office practices and, in the United States, the new Medical Device Tax. During the quarter, CooperSurgical, on an organic constant currency basis, was essentially flat. Even so, we believe we continue to gain share. Longer term, we expect to continue to leverage our CooperSurgical infrastructure or critical mass, expanding outside the United States by growing IVF and channeling new products through this franchise. Within our women's healthcare franchise, products such as IVF products for fertility present the greatest opportunity for truly global reach. A couple of comments on guidance. We updated our guidance in late December following the amendment of our CIBA-Alcon royalty agreement and again when we released our first quarter earnings results. Given the strength of our second quarter results on the bottom line, we brought about -- it brought about a strong gross margin trend and favorable effective tax rate. We have again upped our new GAAP earnings per share guidance in spite of a worsening trend on foreign exchange rates -- or more specifically, the yen, which is down 8% since our March earnings call. While constant currency revenue is doing great, we have moderated our revenue guidance to reflect yen weakening, given we have over $200 million in revenue or about 17% of our sales at CooperVision that are yen based. Our new guidance on a non-GAAP earnings per share this year of $6.15 to $6.25 versus previous guidance of $5.95 to $6.10 reflects the strength and progress of our product portfolio, including Biofinity, acceleration of market share gains, favorable second quarter results and the lower -- a lower defective tax rate for this fiscal year. In spite of increasing our bottom line results and guidance, we continue to invest in geographic expansion in R&D, with emphasis on D, or product development. This D is what has accelerated our rollout of our new products like MyDay, our new branded 1 Day silicone hydrogel lens. On strategy, we are continuing with our successful strategy, which I frequently have articulated in the past. We believe it is solid and has delivered results. CooperSurgical is putting up solid results and is leveraging its infrastructure. The franchise was built with a solid understanding of the value of critical mass in the women's health care market, targeting OB/GYNs. We follow the profession wherever they go: office, surgery center, hospital or IVF centers. Although the call points are different for each, the leverage is considerable. CooperSurgical's second quarter '13 gross profit was 65%. Operating margins were 17%. And due to minimal capital requirements, CooperSurgical is a significant contributor to free cash flow. We are dedicated to this strategy and will continue tuck-in and non-U.S. acquisitions to leverage the CooperSurgical structure and products. At CooperVision, the strategy is more complex and is much more global in nature. The $7.2 billion soft contact lens industry, because of the uniqueness of our manufacturing platform and product portfolio, we are the only participants that could aggressively promote silicone and non-silicone hydrogel lenses -- that is, the Proclear family -- emphasize branded and nonbranded products. Note, private label does not mean lowering our operating margins. We actively promote and specialize in custom lenses with a high gross profit, of course. We support all modalities that eye care physicians prescribe: 1 Day, 2-week and monthly modalities. And we support all types of lenses: spheres, torics and multifocals. We're close to 30% share in the high-growth specialty categories, torics and multifocals. It is acknowledged by eye care professionals that we're pretty good at specialty contact lenses. Few eye care professions would challenge why the success of Biofinity toric for astigmatism. Put a great design together with a great material, and great things can happen. We have seen similar successes for the same reason with Biofinity Multifocal, which shipped to market in the middle of 2011. On the capacity front, with the exception of Avaira Toric, we are ahead of plan to deliver considerably more product where we had been previously supply constrained. The Biofinity family, Proclear 1 Day, are all in good capacity shape. Our newest challenge will be to ramp up 1 Day silicone hydrogels, as yet a niche market. On pricing, we, like the rest of the soft contact lens industry, have a trade-up strategy. Our new wearers and existing wearers are targeted for silicone hydrogel lenses, the Proclear family and the 1 Day or single-use lenses. Each creates more revenue per patient. A 1 Day modality, for example, results in 4x to 6x more revenue per wearer. While this strategy sacrifices the gross profit margin, or percent, it generally creates 3x to 5x more profit per wear. Of course, this strategy competes head-on with the lens care space since we are shifting away our resources from lens care to contact lenses only. Competing for lens care dollars is more a problem with some of our competitors. In my opinion, we continue to be the most focused company in the industry, lacking many of the distractions that some of our competitors are now going through. I might add, with Biofinity, Avaira and Proclear, we have a lot of talk about with the eye care professionals all around the globe. As we look down the road over the next several years, we expect to continue improving operating margins and delivering above-average shareholder returns. We expect to continue to average double-digit earnings per share growth while investing in geographic expansion and new product development. In today's market, we are a solid -- we have a solid product portfolio to leverage in all modalities, multiple materials, all lens types, and we retain our expertise to emphasize customizing lenses for the 10% to 20% of those lens wearers requiring other-than-standard lens sizes and/or designs. We have a lot of work to do before we come anywhere close to having exploited our #1 contact lens family, Biofinity. This is particularly true when it comes to geographic expansion and fully developing the lens family of torics and multifocals around the globe. The same applies to Avaira, where the Avaira Sphere has been anxiously awaiting the relaunch of Avaira Toric. The combination has put us in a much better position to exploit the U.S. 2-week space owned by Johnson & Johnson and to also exploit our private label strategy more aggressively with this family. While we already have pretty respectable gross profit and operating margins from a cost perspective, we have considerable upside yet to be fully developed. Upsides include: the complete elimination of silicone hydrogel royalty through expiration of patents in September 2014 in the United States and March 2016 in the rest of the world; the reduction of our manufacturing cost by, among other things, improving molding cycle times, increasing capacity utilization and improving yields in general. Each of these are key goals for us. Also, given the considerable amount of free cash flow we generate, we will continue to look for tuck-in acquisitions and geographic expansion opportunities like Origio in our 2 businesses. The key requirement, however, is that each must succeed our minimal investment hurdle rates. Each must achieve, over time, a hurdle rate that exceeds 10% return on invested capital. Additionally, the markets for both women's health care and soft contact lenses are much less developed outside the United States, and we generate a considerable amount of cash flow offshore, due in part to our level of manufacturing outside the United States. As such, we will continue to aggressively invest in global expansion opportunities. With over 95% of the people on the planet outside the United States, we believe we will find opportunities to invest in other countries for decades to come, thereby sustaining our low effective tax rate indefinitely. And finally, we again this year demonstrated we are opportunistically willing to buy some of our own stock to maximize total shareholder return. In summary, before I turn it over to Greg, let me say how pleased I am with our ongoing progress. We continue to outperform the marketplace, most recently growing 2x to 3x the market rate of growth. Our top line growth in a skittish global economy remains solid, and I am very pleased at our double-digit organic constant currency growth at CooperVision during the quarter and year-to-date. Our family of products, Biofinity, Avaira, Proclear 1 Day and now 1 Day single-use silicone, as well as, in woman's healthcare, our global fertility products, are all promising growth going forward. We continue to execute well and invest in geographic expansion in the new product pipeline. While we are still early with our expansion program in each of the BRIC countries, and there are challenges in each, I am very pleased with our progress to date. Our women's health care franchise has now become more global with the Origio acquisition made 1 year ago. We remain keenly focused on delivering consistently improving results mindful of our desire to invest and leverage prudently, thereby delivering a respectable total shareholder return. And lastly, as always, a reminder that at Cooper, our #1 asset is our employees. To them, a big thank you for consistently delivering great results. And now, here's Greg.