Stanley M. Bergman
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thank you, Steven. So let me review the highlights from the second quarter for the 3 business units. You know we now have our 3 global business units, the Global Dental business unit, the global Animal Health business unit, the Global Medical business unit, which is primarily a business unit focused in North America at this time, and -- or shall we say, the U.S. and then, of course, there's a fourth unit, the 3 verticals, and then there's horizontal units of Technology and Value-Added Services, which is global in nature, but supports our Global Dental, Animal Health and Medical groups. So let's talk about the Global Dental to start with. We believe that we continue to gain, as noted early in my opening remarks, market share, and I think Steven reaffirmed that, the market share in our Global Dental business during the quarter, with particular strength in the North American equipment business, as we mentioned earlier. The dental specialty markets are important components in our growth, and we recently strengthened our global orthodontic business with the acquisition of Ortho Technology. So we are building a nice orthodontic business. We started out Ortho Organizers, added on a couple of businesses there to expand the offering, and the Ortho Technology gives us more products and certainly more sales. And it's a nice market that's complementary to our overall Henry Schein dental business. The Ortho Technology business offers a complete line of orthodontic supplies and serves approximately 10,000 customers worldwide. So it's a relatively small business with a lot of customers, and the opportunity to increase sales to these customers is there because we have the penetration but we didn't -- in terms of access to customers, but we have relatively small amounts of sales to each of these customers. The business will be complementary, of course, to Ortho Organizers, which we acquired in March of 2009. The business has done very well for us, and that, as our shareholders know, those that are close to us, Ortho Organizers largely serves general practice dentist professionals, while Ortho Technology sells products primarily to orthodontists. So we have a nice mix of customers here that we're now positioned to introduce our broad offering in the Ortho line to. We envisage multiple synergies between these 2 organizations, including leveraging Ortho Organizers' manufacturing capabilities. They manufacture certain products and do a good job at that and Ortho Technologies' aesthetic brackets and a best-in-class direct marketing expertise, Good opportunity. With this transaction, we are further penetrating what is a $1.25 billion global orthodontics market with a company that has been gaining share for several years. Ortho Technology is based in Tampa, Florida, was founded in 1991 and has approximately 19 Team Schein Members. The sales for 2011 were $24 million, not a lot in the context of a 9-or-so-billion-dollar Henry Schein business, but very, very important strategically. We plan to promote the company as part of the Henry Schein portfolio of orthodontics companies, as I noted. In addition, we have a plan to expand our presence in Asia. We've, I think, done very well in North America, of course, in Europe. Asia is a market that presents lots of opportunity, rapidly growing market in terms of population. The middle class is growing, and it's in this context that we made a decision a couple of years ago that we wanted to expand into the Asian market and pursued a joint venture with the Accord company. This transaction establishes our presence in Thailand in a leadership position and can serve as our -- and will, of course, service as our anchor for further expansion in Asia. Thailand is the 26th country in which Henry Schein now operates. Now of course, Thailand in itself is not that material from a global point of view, but Accord is the premier distributor in Southeast Asia, a long history. We've worked with Mrs. Suchada, the CEO of the company, for almost 20 years in different ways. We know the company very well and the facility, the capacity to do education and work for our suppliers in that part of the world is terrific, and the reputation of Accord is terrific. The Thai dental market is the fifth largest in Asia. It's estimated to be about $100 million annually. The rest of the Southeast Asia market is about a $150 million market opportunity, again this is from a dental point of view, but it's also growing rapidly. Accord is based in Bangkok, it's Thailand's leading full-service dental distributor. The company was founded in 1976, has approximately 115 team members, including 45 -- almost half of the company represent -- is in the field sales area, and the 45 field and then another dozen or so in telesales, so about half of the company is focused on sales and services 5,000 customers. Among the many brands Accord carries are a number of exclusives, many -- in fact all of them, were key suppliers of Henry Schein, in general. The company in 2011 had sales of about $15 million, relatively small, but very important in our strategic plan to expand our presence in Asia. Accord was owned by the Charnsethikul family -- I always get that -- have trouble with that, and Mrs. Suchada is much easier for me to pronounce. We acquired 75% of the company, and the founding family will retain the remaining 25%. Part of our general strategy has always been to enter into new markets, whether it's new products or new geographies, with partners. Accord is operated by Mrs. Suchada, who is in her second term as President of the Thai Dental Trade Association. Ask anyone about Mrs. Suchada in the East Asia area and global dental market, and she will carry huge, huge credibility. And she will continue to manage Accord, and is grooming the next generation of managers as well. Accord is widely recognized as a solid, solid company with great management. Mrs. Suchada is one of the most respected leaders in the Asian dental community, and enjoys extensive relationships with distributors in other countries and key manufacturers. And of course, we're very, very excited and -- to have entered this joint venture. We have an Asian team that we started putting together about 4 or 5 years ago and are doing well. The joint venture in Hong Kong is doing extremely well. We're the largest player in that market from a dental point of view, and now Thailand, and we continue to roll out our Chinese strategy, which is making progress, but of course, quite challenged. China is a large market, huge opportunity, and we continue to advance our strategy there, too, with the recent Thai acquisition complementing the Hong Kong joint venture. In June, we held our 17th annual Dental National Sales Meeting and concurrently celebrated the 15th anniversary of creating Sullivan-Schein, which is now known as Henry Schein Dental. Of course, bringing those companies together with mere dental had its challenges. Bottom line is, it's the largest distributor of dental products in the world, very profitable, with a superb management team. 2,000 Team Schein Members gathered in Florida with our key suppliers who attended and did a really terrific job, the largest gathering of its kind in the world, included training and education sessions, valuable opportunity for our sales representatives to share best practices amongst themselves. We had a nice contingency from our international group coming to learn, share best practice, and of course, everyone spending time with our key supplier representatives. Always good for investors that want to get a feel for what happens at one of these events, to have a discussion going on about our suppliers, maybe more of them, 1 or 2, and 3, even more, and find out how well these meetings go. And this meeting was really superb. It prepares us, of course, for the rest of the year and particularly for the selling season, which begins towards the end of this quarter and it's heavy in the fourth quarter. At this year's meeting, we launched a new program called Likable Dentists. This is a Facebook marketing solution that assists dentists and dental practices in using social media critical to the future of dental practices, to build their brand and engage with existing and prospective patients. Our launch of Likable Dentists is a prime example of our commitment to finding innovative solutions that help our customers' practices evolve along with the times, very, very important, so social media and capitalize on the increasing importance of e-commerce in the dental market. So very, very excited with what's happening on the Global Dental side. We are, by far, the biggest dental company in the world, almost $5 billion, or just around $5 billion of sales. We're gaining market share, making progress on our strategic plan. We've got a great management team that is aligning behind the strategic plan in a very nice way. And we've got depth of management in all parts of the world and many, many opportunities, lots of blanks in terms of product offerings and geographies, and we are executing, and there's much more to come this year and next year and the following year as we execute the plan. So let's now turn to the Global Animal Health business. This business continues to make impressive gains in the market in terms of market share and particularly in North America. As our shareholders recall, 2010 was the integration year of this joint venture, it's created the Butler Schein business in the U.S. 2011, we made really good progress in terms of market share, and that progress continues in 2012. During the second quarter, we completed our acquisition of the AUV Veterinary Services business. I discussed AUV at length during our previous conference call. But as a reminder, this transaction brings us a leading presence in the Netherlands and Belgium and advances our pan-European strategy of providing Animal Health practitioners across the continent with products and services needed to operate more efficient practices and deliver high-quality care. The key here is that we are almost in a position to go to our major suppliers and say, "We will take care of your products, major, and of course, other emerging suppliers across Europe as we've done on the dental side." So there's some more blanks on the map that need to be filled out. We will make good progress in that area, I'm quite convinced, and we'll create Europe -- we are today, Europe's largest Animal Health distributor, but we will create a unique, unique presence that our manufacturers will turn to, and moving us from a market that is more or less a logistics distribution market to one in which we will bring Animal Health Value-Added Services to our veterinary customers in Europe in a similar way to the way we've done it in North America and on the dental side in Europe -- North America in Animal Health and the way we've done it on the dental side in Europe. I'd like to remind you that AUV's business currently has an operating margin of 1% and will negatively impact our consolidated worldwide operating margin going forward. No different, by the way, to the Demedis deal of several years ago and I think we've shown very good results there on the dental side. While we look forward to the opportunity to improve margins at AUV over the next few years, we estimate this acquisition will negatively impact our consolidated operating margins for the second half of the year by approximately 10 basis points. Having said this, I think the Animal Health business presents huge opportunity for Henry Schein as the only global distributor in the space, and I think we are creating a terrific asset for -- which all goes towards creating shareholder value. So now on the medical side. Let me -- our Global Medical business, really 90% North America and really U.S.-based. Our continued impressive growth in that -- in this business during the second quarter, which is on the heels of market share gains now for quite a while, is really due to the increased penetration of the integrated delivery networks, larger group practices and of course, the ambulatory surgery center, as well as solid growth in sales and pharmaceutical products and medical equipment. I think we've mentioned this to shareholders in the past, we've conducted a strategic plan about 4.5 years ago to determine which areas of this market we wanted to focus on from a specialty point of view and how we were going to access these new emerging delivery networks, the integrated networks to the different kinds of large group practices, ambulatory health care is growing in importance. So different ways to address that. And so the second component part, how to address this opportunity in terms of the way in which practice of medicine is conducted was addressed through the establishment of our health care services group, which is doing extremely well in penetrating these newer kinds of health care delivery networks. Another recent acquisition was the Modern Laboratory, MLS deal. This transaction reflects our continued commitment to the physician clinical laboratory market, a very important little market, but very profitable and strengthens our position on the U.S. West Coast, which is an area of exciting growth. In fact, MLS is one of the leading distributors in Western U.S. of products and services for the POL, physician office laboratory. The products are laboratory equipment supplies. MLS represents many of the most important suppliers in the clinical laboratory business including serving as exclusive distributor for the Siemens' Dimension chemistry analyzer product on that side of the country and complements our business on the East side of the U.S. Sales were $22 million, but the sales are not anywhere reflective of the huge opportunity from a strategic point of view. So sales are modest, but the strategic benefit is quite large when connected to our U.S. sales and distribution channel, where with this product offering, we will be able to penetrate further into the market. Having said that, MLS does have approximately 700 customers, 36 team members. The company was founded in 1984 in an entrepreneurial way, based in Bakersfield, California. The entrepreneurs that founded the business will continue with us as is customary in many of these kinds of relationships at Henry Schein. Stan Sherrill, CEO and co-owner, a terrific, terrific knowledgeable individual in this market, will join Henry Schein as the West Coast Lab Sales Manager; and Bob Ward, President and co-owner also a great, great entrepreneurial manager, who will fit very well into our entrepreneurial culture, will continue to oversee their MLS business to the U.S. military bases in U.S. territories. These are nice opportunities to leverage not only the MLS business per se, but leverage Henry Schein's other products into these markets. The transaction also advances our goal of gaining market share and adding knowledgeable key -- a key component part, knowledgeable management through strategic acquisitions within important product areas and niche areas. So now that's the dental, the Animal Health and the medical global businesses. Let me now turn to -- those are our 3 major verticals. To the horizontal that crosses the business unit, the global Technology and Value-Added Services business unit, that covers the vertical supporting all 3 horizontal businesses. This business is primarily a technology software-related services and also financial services. The performance of this group continued to be solid during the second quarter, with strong internal growth in the United States, bolstered by strategic acquisitions. The acquisition is, again, not material from a sales point of view, not even material from a dollars and cents put to work point of view, capital deployed, shall we say, but much more important from a strategic point of view. More than 85% of Technology and Value-Added Services revenue is derived from North America at this time. The goal is to expand that globally, and quarterly results include a particular strength in recurring revenue streams on both the technology side and as well as, by the way, on the financial services side of the business. So I think you can see there's a lot of good things happening here at Henry Schein. We're gaining market share. We're focused on increasing our operating margin from our existing portfolio, putting on top of that newer businesses where there's lots of opportunity to increase the margin, and so we are executing on our strategic plan with the 3 global verticals, with a global technology and a financial services, value-added services horizontal working well, I would say that our global services part of the business, that's our distribution, the IT, the human resources, the supply chain, all of that is doing very well as we globalize our business. We've been doing that for the past decade. We have a terrific management team supporting the sales and marketing part of the business and great strategies, and are executing, I think, in a way that is very good. Seasoned management team doing a great job is complemented by lots of additional members of the team who are being integrated nicely in general. So before we take questions, I'd like to touch on the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as health care reform. As we all know, there are likely to be changes to this law before it goes into effect. And in fact, this particular legislation will mature, like all major legislation in American history, it will mature over the next decade, but believe that the overriding goal of expanding access to health care with a focus on preventative care in the primary care physician office and alternate care setting, is a net positive for Henry Schein. Yes, there will be challenges. The first line of defense for many Americans remains the emergency room in the hospital. That will change over time and be moved to the physician office and alternate care setting. Who pays for that is the big debate, but I think it is clear that the physician will play a more important role in the primary care setting, that preventative care will be important. These are all areas that Henry Schein has been focused on now for a long time. And I think we are ideally positioned to advance our business into this new environment that will unfold over the next decade or so and sooner. While there'll be a cost pressure to contain the use of certain higher-priced procedures, devices, therapeutics, we don't see this having much of an impact in the end on Henry Schein, like -- very similar, by the way, on the dental side where we have our special markets business. Yes, we are dealing with a more sophisticated customer, but a more sophisticated customer is also able to get greater compliance with formularies and the like. And so as the market transforms, I think it will be to our benefit for business, for a business that was primarily business to small business to -- in the medical world to transform into small -- into an environment of business to proficiently run larger enterprises, which gives us opportunity to work with those suppliers that are committed to this market to advance our mutual business. And there is a challenge with the new tax that will be levied on manufacturers of medical devices. The market will adjust over time. But there's a lot of system work needed to comply. There's a lot -- going to be a lot of challenges with customers understanding why prices are going up, not too dissimilar with some of the legislation relative to the pharma industry where we have to track lots going back to who manufactured the product. I think Henry Schein developed very good systems in this area. It was a challenge for the industry, but I believe the Henry Schein systems that we have today are really a barrier to entry for many smaller players. So I think we will see consolidation on this market, both on the distribution side, probably on the manufacturing side, but also definitely on the customer side. And I think we are well positioned to -- specifically on the medical side, but there is even some dental opportunity to advance the business during -- and the changes that will be advanced in the health care arena in the next decade with some significant changes in the near-term. Of course, we consider the -- there's no doubt we have to consider the general economic conditions in the markets we serve. There's definitely somewhat of an impact. Things are a little different to they were, perhaps 2 or 3 quarters ago, but I think Steven has adequately taken this into account, and reaffirming our guidance in the traditional, conservative way in which he has approached guidance and reconciliation to our internal budgets. So having said this, we do see a positive impact from the fact that more people are expected to seek routine and preventative medical services, both in the medical world, in the dental world, with more physician activity going to take place, movement away from the acute care setting into the physician space. The higher traffic that will, over time, emerge in the physician space primarily in the primary care area, I think is good for Henry Schein in the long run. Of course, we have to budget changing the dynamics, which is reinforcing one part of the business while sunsetting to some extent other parts of the business, it's all areas that I think our team is well, well, ready to adjust. Any time we have earned significant change dynamics, there are opportunities and there are challenges, of course. And I think we are well positioned to take advantage of that. We have, I think, a very good portfolio of businesses, dental, medical, Animal Health and geographies. And I think we are well positioned, of course, not without the usual business risk, but I think this management team here has shown over the decades that these kinds of risks can be monetarized for the benefit of our shareholders. So with that in mind, Steven and I are ready to take questions.