Chris Simon
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thanks, Olga, and thank you all for joining our earnings call. Today, we reported organic revenue growth of 19% in the fourth quarter and 7% in fiscal '22, and an adjusted earnings per diluted share of $0.65 in the fourth quarter, and $2.58 in fiscal '22, an increase of 41% versus the prior year fourth quarter, and an increase of 10% versus the prior fiscal year. The past year was a challenging one, but we are proud of how our people have responded. Our fourth quarter performance reflects our resilience and our commitment to meet the needs of our customers and deliver on our purpose of improving standards of care. Our agility and perseverance helped us achieve growth in all businesses, and we continue to distinguish Haemonetics for the meaningful value we are creating across our markets. As the industry leader, we delivered integrated solutions to help our plasma customers realize much needed growth in the volume of collections. In the face of unprecedented blood shortages, our blood center products help maximize the impact of donations, and attract and retain donors. Hospital, including Vascular Closure, continue to exceed expectations and was our fastest-growing business in fiscal '22, helping customers improve patient care and outcomes at less cost. As we evolve our portfolio and we expand our reach and relevance, Hospital will increasingly drive our growth and diversification. Our operational excellence program proved fundamental to our resilience and ability to quickly address supply chain disruptions, and serve all who depend on us. It will continue to play a critical role in sustaining our success, enabling us to be a more agile, efficient and productive company, creating lasting cost savings and bring resources to fund investments. Turning now to our business unit results. Plasma revenue increased 31% in the fourth quarter driven by a 12% increase in U.S. plasma volume, price benefits and a $6 million stocking order. Excluding the stocking order, U.S. Plasma volume declined 4% sequentially, which compares favorably to a typical seasonal decline of about 7% in the fourth quarter, and last year's fourth quarter decline of 13%. In fiscal '22, Plasma revenue grew 10% driven by growth in volume. We remain committed to enabling our customers to improve donor satisfaction, maximize Plasma volume and lower cost per liter collected. Our technology and ongoing product development are essential to helping our customers meet these critical needs. Nearly all of our major customers in the U.S. are now experiencing the full value of our technology through a network of bidirectionally connected NexSys PCS devices with NexLynk DMS and Donor360 app. Working closely with our customers, we have designed NexSys to streamline the collection process. These advances have proven especially important at a time when our customers are facing unprecedented staffing challenges. Our fully integrated system plays a vital role in a positive donor experience and collection center productivity. From instant check-in upon arrival through streamlined donation and expedited payment, NexSys contributes to a demonstrated 16-minute reduction in average donor door-to-door times, improved compliance, including a 98% elimination of documentation errors and increased donor satisfaction. Our customers are also collecting an additional 9% to 12% of Plasma yield on average on NexSys with Persona, enabling them to both increase Plasma supply and reduce the average cost per liter. We are leveraging extensive customer experience and real-world data from nearly 30 million NexSys collections to focus our ongoing innovation agenda. Our product development efforts continue to help customers improve center operations by driving growth in collections and improving Plasma volume output while increasing donor retention and satisfaction. We look forward to sharing more about these programs at our Investor Day in June. The patient need for plasma-derived pharmaceuticals has never been greater. We continue to see long-term plasma market collections demand of 8% to 10%, and we expect to see volume growth in excess of that as fractionators strive to replenish depleted plasma inventories. Moving to Hospital. Revenue increased 19% in the fourth quarter and 16% in fiscal '22. All 4 of our product lines grew this year despite the challenges posed by the Omicron outbreaks, Hospital staffing shortages and COVID-19-related lockdowns in China. Hemostasis Management delivered 12% revenue growth in the quarter and 20% revenue growth in fiscal '22. In the U.S., our largest market, TEG, delivered robust growth both in the quarter and in fiscal '22. We also benefited from strong growth in Europe, primarily driven by successful market penetration with our ClotPro, viscoelastic elastic diagnostic device, which was acquired in April 2020. Growth in the U.S. and Europe was partially offset by weaker sales in China. As you will hear during our Investor Day, we remain enthusiastic about our ability to grow organically and inorganically in what we estimate is a $700 million global market. Transfusion Management revenue grew 18% in the fourth quarter and 11% in fiscal '22, and was equally strong for BloodTrack and for SafeTrace Tx as we completed a series of new account installations. Our fourth quarter results also benefited from a catch-up in software implementations in the U.S. after a few months of delay due to Omicron. Cell salvage revenue increased 17% in the quarter and 8% in fiscal '22 driven by procedure recovery and strong capital sales. Growth in the quarter also benefited from back order relief, from the temporary supply chain constraints we experienced in the third quarter. Vascular Closure continues to excel delivering a record $27 million of revenue in the fourth quarter and $94 million in fiscal '22. With the integration of this business essentially complete, our focus is on accelerating our penetration into the $2.8 billion underpenetrated market. While advancing our product portfolio to continue strengthening the role of our Hospital business as a growth engine for Haemonetics. Blood Center revenue grew 7% in the fourth quarter and declined 1% in fiscal '22. Apheresis revenue declined 1% in the quarter and fiscal '22 as the strong recovery in platelet collections in Japan was offset by lower revenue from convalescent plasma, and staffing shortages that affect the collection centers across the U.S. Whole Blood grew 26% in the quarter driven by favorable order timing among distributors in EMEA and additional opportunities in North America. Our supply chain resilience enabled us to serve customers in need. For the full year, Whole Blood revenue declined 3% driven by blood center staffing shortages and previously discontinued customer contracts in North America. To carry our momentum into fiscal '23 and beyond, Haemonetics is set for robust transformational growth, propelled by investments in the advancement of our technologies and expansion of our global commercial capabilities. We look forward to sharing our updated long-range plans, key business initiatives, innovation agenda, and revised financial outlook at our Investor Day on Wednesday, June 29, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and we invite you to join us either in person, in Boston, or virtually. I'll now turn the call over to James D’Arecca, and take this opportunity to welcome him as our new Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. James brings to Haemonetics substantial experience and financial leadership from prominent global health care organizations, and I look forward to working together to support our company's growth, resource allocation and long-term value creation. James?
James D’Arecca: Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin by saying how excited I am to be part of Haemonetics. Tomorrow, we'll mark 1 month since I joined the company. And as I onboard, I'm incredibly impressed with our people, our leadership and the exciting possibilities ahead of us. I very much look forward to being part of this journey, and applying my experience towards growth and value creation. Now let's discuss our business results and fiscal '23 guidance. Our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal '22 show continued resilience across the business. Chris already discussed our revenue results, so I will focus on the rest of the financials. Our adjusted gross margin was 53.6% in the fourth quarter and 53.9% in fiscal '22, an increase of 360 basis points when compared with the same periods of the prior year. The adjusted gross margin expansion was driven by the addition of the Vascular Closure business and benefits from the operational excellence program. These benefits were partially offset by inflationary pressures in our supply chain and manufacturing, including freight, labor and raw material costs as well as higher depreciation costs primarily related to the increasing installed base of our NexSys devices in the U.S. Price had a positive impact on the fourth quarter results, but a limited impact on our fiscal '22 since price adjustments in our Plasma business in the first 9 months of the year largely offset price benefits from NexSys and Persona conversions in the second half of fiscal '22. As a reminder, these price adjustments were related to the expiration of fixed term pricing on historical PCS2 technology, and were fully annualized at the end of the third quarter of fiscal '22. Adjusted operating expenses in the fourth quarter were $95.4 million, an increase of $13.4 million or 16% compared with the fourth quarter of the prior year. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating expenses decreased by 40 basis points to 36%. Adjusted operating expenses in the fourth quarter included a ramp-up in investments that were delayed earlier in fiscal '22. Adjusted operating expenses for fiscal '22 were $348.6 million, an increase of $65.6 million or 23% compared with the prior year. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating expenses increased by 260 basis points to 35.1%. Vascular Closure had the largest impact on adjusted operating expenses in the quarter and in fiscal '22. Additionally, we had higher investments, higher outbound freight costs and increases in other expenses associated with the return to normal spending levels. Contributions from our productivity savings, lower variable compensation and the impact of the 53rd week in fiscal '21, helped offset some of the cost increases, both in the quarter and in fiscal '22. As a result of changes in our adjusted gross margin and adjusted operating expenses, fourth quarter adjusted operating income was $46.6 million, an increase of $16.1 million or 53%, and adjusted operating income for fiscal '22 was $187.1 million, an increase of $32.6 million or 21% compared with the prior year. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted operating income margin was 17.6% in the fourth quarter and 18.8% in fiscal '22, up 410 basis points and [100] basis points, respectively compared with the same periods in fiscal '21. The macroeconomic-driven inflationary environment continues to be challenging. The impacts in fiscal '22 have been broad-based, including freight, raw materials and labor. We estimate an approximately 300 basis point impact from inflationary pressures on our adjusted operating income margin. Our operational excellence program is an important lever in making us more efficient and agile, especially during periods of high macroeconomic uncertainty. In our fiscal '22, this program delivered $37 million of gross savings, freeing up resources to fund additional investments. Since the inception of this program, we have generated $71 million in cumulative gross savings, slightly ahead of our plan. We also had positive contributions from Vascular Closure. This business continues to exceed our expectations. And within the first year of our ownership of this business, it has delivered a robust revenue growth and positive contribution to our adjusted earnings per diluted share compared with $0.15 to $0.20 of dilution we had originally guided to in the first year following the acquisition. We are excited about the opportunities in Vascular Closure, and we'll continue to allocate investments to fund its growth. The adjusted income tax rate was 22% for both the fourth quarter and fiscal '22 compared with 12% and 14%, respectively, for the same periods of the prior year. The adjusted income tax rate in fiscal '21 was lower than fiscal '22 due to the benefit of higher share vestings and option exercises in fiscal '21, which did not recur in fiscal '22. Fourth quarter adjusted net income was $33.5 million, up $9.6 million or 40%, and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.65, and 41% when compared with the fourth quarter of fiscal '21. Adjusted net income for fiscal '22 was $132.6 million, up $11.9 million or 10%, and adjusted earnings per diluted share was $2.58, up 10% when compared with the prior year. Changes in the adjusted income tax rate, higher interest expense and FX had a negative $0.10 impact on the fourth quarter and a negative $0.31 impact on the full year adjusted earnings per diluted share when compared with the prior year. Cash on hand at the end of the fourth quarter was $259 million, up $67 million since the beginning of the year. Free cash flow before restructuring and restructuring-related costs was $117 million compared with $99 million at the end of the last fiscal year. The higher free cash flow before restructuring and restructuring-related costs in fiscal '22 was mainly due to lower accounts payable, largely due to a $54 million payment for our compensation-related liability as part of the Cardiva Medical acquisition in fiscal '21. We also had higher accounts receivable as revenue continued to recover from the effects of the pandemic and higher capital expenses primarily related to NexSys upgrades and the operational excellence program, partially offset by a decrease in inventory. We have enough NexSys PCS devices in the U.S. inventory to convert the remainder of our major customers with no impact to future cash flow. Our current debt structure includes a $700 million credit facility. That matures in June 2023, with balloon payments starting in September 2022. At the end of the fourth quarter, total debt outstanding under the facility was $284 million, with no borrowings outstanding under the $350 million revolving credit line at the end of fiscal '22. We plan to refinance our credit facility before the balloon payments are due. Additionally, we have $500 million in convertible notes that expire in March of 2026. Our EBITDA leverage ratio as calculated in accordance with the terms set forth in the company's existing credit agreement was $3.08 at the end of fiscal '22. Now let's move on to our guidance. We expect total organic revenue growth of 6% to 10% in fiscal '23. We remain confident in our Plasma business, and expect Plasma revenue to grow 7% to 12% in fiscal '23 with price and volume both contributing meaningfully. Additionally, our guidance includes an $88 million minimum purchase commitment from CSL compared with $102 million of revenue in fiscal '22. We are excited about the opportunity in our Hospital business. Our go-to-market strategies are working, and we're looking forward to another year of strong commercial performance. In fiscal '23, we expect the Hospital business to deliver revenue growth of 16% to 19% driven by continued robust growth in Hemostasis Management and Vascular Closure. Our Blood Center revenue guidance is a year-over-year decline of 4% to 7% and reflects additional geopolitical risk and an unfavorable impact from distributor order timing when compared with fiscal '22. We expect fiscal '23 adjusted operating margins in the range of 18% to 19%. Our adjusted operating margin guidance includes higher operating expenses driven by continuous investment into our business as we broaden our product portfolio to strengthen our technology and expand our commercial footprint and a return to normalized spending levels. Our adjusted operating income margin also includes about 250 basis points of additional headwinds due to inflation and geopolitical risk. We expect our operational excellence program to deliver additional gross savings of approximately $22 million, with total cumulative savings reaching $93 million by the end of our fiscal '23. About half of these savings will be in cost of goods sold, with the rest in operating expenses, helping us generate additional efficiency across our business. Our adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance for fiscal '23 is a range of $2.50 to $2.90. The midpoint of our adjusted earnings per diluted share guidance includes about $0.09 headwind from FX and share count. Additionally, consistent with our fiscal '22 results, we expect our adjusted earnings per diluted share to be higher in the second half of fiscal '23. And lastly, our free cash flow before restructuring and turnaround expenses in fiscal '23 is expected to be $100 million to $130 million. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged, and we will continue to allocate capital to prioritize organic investments followed by inorganic opportunities and share repurchases. Before we open the call up for Q&A, I wanted to reiterate the key points that we hope you takeaway from today's call. First, we continue to strengthen and grow our business despite the continued challenges caused by the pandemic. The end market demand, particularly for our Plasma and Hospital products is strong, and we're focused on maintaining an uninterrupted supply of our products. Second, our product portfolio continues to evolve and increase our reach within large, underserved and fast-growing markets. The acquisition of Cardiva Medical was an important step in our transformational growth journey. We remain focused on further optimizing our portfolio and accelerating our growth. Third, our operational excellence program improves our operating performance, enabling us to respond quickly to supply chain disruptions. We made significant progress by achieving more than half of the target program gross savings by the end of fiscal '22 while managing through a series of macroeconomic-driven headwinds. We plan to achieve the remaining $44 million to $54 million in target savings by the end of fiscal '25. This program is essential for our ongoing transformation. And once the macro environment stabilizes, these efficiency benefits will continue to expand our margins. And finally, we remain committed to driving value for our customers and our shareholders. We are proud of the work we've done to meet the challenges over the past few years. We recognize more challenges are ahead, and we remain committed to taking action, implementing necessary changes and mitigating impacts without compromising growth of our business. We look forward to sharing more detail about our plans to deliver value at our Investor Day. Thank you. And now I would like to open the line for Q&A.