Earnings Labs

ICU Medical, Inc. (ICUI)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Sun, May 10, 2020

$120.56

-1.86%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the ICU Medical Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host today Mr. John Mills of ICR. Please go ahead, sir.

John Mills

Analyst

Great, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the ICU Medical financial results for the first quarter of 2020. On the call today representing ICU Medical is Vivek Jain, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; and Brian Bonnell, Chief Financial Officer. We want to let everyone know that we have a presentation accompanying today's prepared remarks. To view the presentation please go to our Investor page and click on the Events Calendar and it will be under the First Quarter 2020 Events. Before we start our prepared remarks, I want to touch upon any forward-looking statements made during the call, including beliefs and expectations about the company's future results. Please be aware they are based on the best available information to management and assumptions that are reasonable. Such statements are not intended to be a representation of future results and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Future results may differ materially from management's current expectations. We refer all of you to the company's SEC filings for more detailed information on the risks and uncertainties that have a direct bearing on operation results and financial position. Please note that during today's call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including results on an adjusted basis. We believe these financial measures can facilitate a more complete analysis and greater transparency in ICU Medicals ongoing results of operations. Particularly when comparing underlying results from period-to-period. We've also included a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures in today's release and provided as much detail as possible on any addendums that are added back. And with that, is my pleasure to turn the call over to Vivek.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everybody. And we hope you and your families are well. For the last three years, we've been ending every call with the same comment about support from our customers and the ability of our employees to adapt in our own journey. While it was never intended for the current environment, that belief is exactly what was and continues to be required in the current environment. Like everyone in our industry, we want to start first by thanking our hospital customers for trusting us to serve you during these times, none of us know exactly what the new normal is, but we do know we will continue to adapt and offer our best support and execution. Our own experiences of rapidly adjusting production up and down, new IT systems, new fulfillment models around the world and deep integration work has actually prepared us well for volatility. We'll try to be a bit brief on this call as we know there's a lot of late in quarter reporting happening in the market. On today's call, we wanted to comment on Q1 results with and without the effects of COVID-19, describe the high level knock-on effects of the pandemic to ICU Medical and how we're adapting, articulate how we feel about our positioning in this environment and any strategic implications. A view on timing and then we will have a better view of the year for our shorter-term financial goals and at least what assumptions we're making now. Update on some housekeeping items including quality audits, product approvals, the Austin factory cutover, and lastly, reflecting that criteria by which we are judging ourselves as we described in the last call as back to growing our differentiated product lines. The first quarter of fiscal 2020 again showed sequential revenue improvement…

Brian Bonnell

Analyst

Thanks Vivek, and good afternoon everyone. To begin, I'll first walk down the P&L, and then talk a little about cash flow and the balance sheet. So starting with the revenue line. Our first quarter 2020 GAAP revenue was $329 million compared to $331 million last year, which is down 1% or flat on a constant currency basis. For your reference, the 2019 and 2020 adjusted revenue numbers, which exclude contract manufacturing sales to Pfizer can be found on Slide Number 3 of the presentation. Our adjusted revenue numbers for the quarter were $316 million compared to $311 million last year, up 2% or 3% on a constant currency basis. Infusion Consumables were up 2% or 4% on a constant currency basis. IV Solutions, which we sell primarily in the US was down 1% on both a reported and constant currency basis. Infusion Systems was up 4% or 7% on a constant currency basis and Critical Care down 4% or 3% on a constant currency basis. As you can see from Slide Number 4 of the presentation. For the first quarter, our adjusted gross margin was 40% compared to 44% for the first quarter last year. The Q1 gross margin was in line with our expectations. The largest driver for the year-over-year decrease is similar to last quarter and reflects the impact from lower sales of higher-priced non-committed business in IV Solutions along with lost manufacturing overhead absorption from lower production levels compared to a year ago. SG&A expense was 22% of revenues during the first quarter, which is flat compared to last year. This was slightly less than expected due to a combination of spending controls and currency. R&D expenses were $11 million for the quarter, down $2 million year-over-year. And we expect R&D to be around 4% of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And you do have a question from Jayson Bedford from Raymond James.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me okay?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Perfectly. Hi, Jason. Go ahead.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

So a lot to unpack here, I guess, let's just start on COVID, the $5 million to $6 million in IV Solutions sounds like that's the benefit in that -- the benefit on the pump side, it sounds like it's not necessarily one time, is that a fair characterization?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I think that's a fair characterization. It wasn't that much revenues into Spain and Italy on the pumps and we expect them to -- longer term to continue to be pumping. On the Solutions piece certainly the part that was not to our -- overage in our existing committed customers that was excess right.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Okay. Can you speak to 2Q and the potential impact there? I think you mentioned participating in select -- selected ordering in US stockpiles. I'm just wondering in terms of 2Q and the potential net benefit from COVID, care to quantify that?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I don't know if we want to quantify it Jayson. I would say it's really going to show if anywhere in the pump, in the IV Systems line, but that need to be balanced against the IV Consumables and Solutions businesses where it has been a very volatile ordering pattern for the last four weeks or five weeks.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

All right. Okay.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Not in a good way.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Okay. In terms of just sticking with the pumps, were you able to install any of the pumps tied to the share gains in 2019 that you previously mentioned?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Not a lot.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Okay. And I know this may be a difficult question, but at what point do you think hospitals get back to deciding on new pump platforms?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

It's difficult to know, I mean certainly right now, people don't want to deal with things that they don't absolutely positively have to deal with. For us it's about just -- we've lost time in the last six weeks, eight weeks with what's going on here obviously it's a secondary issue. And we just need to at least be able to get out there and talk and we don't really see that happening, in a real way -- the hospitals haven't even figured out how to allow people in. And there's not a common set of rules for that even, we don't see that happening for about four to six weeks, so you can even get out there in a meaningful way.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

All right. Okay, maybe a couple of quick ones for Brian. Gross margin should we assume that 1Q here is the trough for the year?

Brian Bonnell

Analyst

No, I don't think that's necessarily the right assumption, just given the potential volatility in volumes over the course of the rest of the year.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Please remember, Jayson. If we install more pumps that's a negative to gross margin. Or if things deteriorate even beyond what we anticipate at the moment and we'll update everybody in the Q2 call, just like we always do, it just comes down to the other two business and what admissions look like.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

All right.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

But if pumps were -- if admissions went down and volumes went down, which is going to happen, it's just a debate about how much, and pumps went up your mix would be negatively impacted from that.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

All right. Okay.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Margins will be negatively impacted. In that period you'd obviously get to do better on the pumps -- over time pumping.

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

All right. Okay, and then maybe just last one. Back to the FX dynamics. I'm still little unclear meaning even the companies I think -- the countries that you cited in the PowerPoint, I think you manufacture more product than you sell into those countries. So I'm still a little puzzled as to why a stronger US dollar wouldn't be a tailwind? So maybe if you could, don't mind going through some of the dynamics there that led to the revision?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Yes, it's a fascinating topic. I'll let Brain take that.

Brian Bonnell

Analyst

Yes. So the majority of the impact due to currency on the EBITDA line comes from balance sheet exposures that we have related to inter-company receivables and payables. Specifically a number of our foreign entities have inter-company payables to our US entity in US dollars. Many of these foreign entities experienced significant impacts to their currency and as a result that liability in US dollars increased as a result and that results in a loss to the other income and expense line of the P&L. Jayson, did that...?

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Yes. So, on the P&L, we're going to see it on the other -- the other income line?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Yes, that's what it is; that's what it is.

Brian Bonnell

Analyst

Longer term on to your other point historically, for ICU strength against the peso was a good guy. We've got a bunch of different places now, and we hedge, we thought it was a portion of it might be as good as it could get, we haven't saw [ph] that too historically, so...

Jayson Bedford

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Thanks, Jay.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Matthew Mishan from KeyBanc.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. I just want to make sure it's been a long day so I just wanted to make sure I understand, you guys aren't necessarily reiterating your guidance excluding -- excluding the FX and interest. You're going to update it in next quarter. And there is a range of outcomes. I'm just -- is the range of outcomes whether that may fall of the middle where some are actually positive outcomes and then some are negative outcomes. I'm just trying to understand what that range of outcomes looks like and make sure I fully understand what you're saying?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Sure. And it's okay to be blunt here right. Our concern was if we, the one thing we knew for certain was the currency and interest expense. Right. We could pay off the revolver and that could go if we wanted. We didn't want any anybody presume that if we withdrew that it would be better. Alright, because it is a very unpredictable and difficult situation out there. We have built in some downside to our current view of the balance of the year that delivers [ph]. But it could get worse, maybe there are some outcomes that are going to get better, but you know this might be the new normal. We don't want to pull and put it out there, again each year, we've -- late on the beginning of the year we've adjusted if we had to -- in the middle of the year, and things we knew right now were the currency, the interest expense and at least some assumption of what deterioration from Q2 to Q3 could be, that's how it was.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

Okay.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Fair to ask, totally fair to ask. We're just, we're trying -- can we run a model. We're not that big. We want to really be transparent and say this is what we're, we're running towards with a higher degree of risk around it.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

All right. That's right sense in this environment. You were planning towards a $75 million to $80 million run rate on IV Solutions over the course of the last five, six months before this, what are you thinking now and how do you kind of view the manufacturing footprint between Austin and Rocky Mount, has that changed?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Not -- let's do it in reverse. Nothing has changed, the team is actively and that's where a lot of CapEx has gone to get the lines up and running in Austin, to allow moves away from Rocky Mount, that is necessary our long-term model. So that hasn't changed at all. And yes, the base business was probably a little bit higher than 80 in Q1. I wouldn't make much of it other than it was a, and you kind of go back to Q4, it was a, reasonable flu season et cetera before the pandemic and the winter is usually a heavier month, just couple of million dollars I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

And on your commentary around you believe the market doesn't want a winner-take-all what is. I'm just trying to sense, where does it, where does that, where did they not want a winner-take-all. I mean we'll, are you talking specifically around, around the solutions there? Or is it more around you think the hospital would want to use like multiple pump manufacturers?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I think it applies to all these categories. And look at the insanity of what we've all been living through, and there aren't that many factories that make a lot of these products, and I guess there aren't that many vendors. And it's not good for the system to be overboard any one situation. And so whether we're the beneficiary or the non -- on the negative end of that if we were in charge, that's how we would think about the categories and then certainly the message we're trying to deliver right there, obviously your products have to stand on their own merits or technology, etcetera. But we see the larger systems thinking about that a lot right now, and whether it was vents or PP&E or any of the other categories, and we've been associated with all those categories in our previous experiences. We do think people are going to do a little bit more reflection on that.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

And I guess the same question like almost like backwards. I guess as you look at, as you look at the rumors of you and Smiths, you look at the UK, and how important the manufacturer is to be based in a country -- to supply a country, do you now look, do you now look at a potentially large acquisition like that? I don't know, I don't know if going forward, it would even be feasible in this kind of environment?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I think we haven't thought about anything outside of the last 90 days. It's on running our own business and making sure we are taking care of our customers. That's stuff will sort itself out over time on what's required in a given place or not, but I do -- I really do believe it's good for the system to have some diversity in the supply chain, whether that helps us get something not suits us that's secondary, right. A lot of these categories -- all these categories that you are reading about every night, I mean they didn't leave local manufacturing by accident, they left because they got overweight either misvalued or overweight in certain direction that they wanted and that's not good for anyone.

Matthew Mishan

Analyst

Thank you very much. And thanks for everything that you're doing out to help support and the questions as well.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Thank you, Matt.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Larry Solow from CJS Securities.

Larry Solow

Analyst

Good afternoon. Good to hear you guys. Hope you and your families are all hanging in there and are actually healthy. Vivek maybe a couple of questions on just some follow ups. Most of my questions have been answered, but in terms of sort of your assumptions clearly sort of the biggest drivers are admission, hospital admissions and you said things could get worse. And obviously that would be on the elective surgery side. Could things get worse on the elective surgery side? Or is it more that you're worried that this continues to be sort of blacked -- almost blacked out for a longer period of time?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I don't know, first, I don't know if it's just elective surgeries. Larry, I mean ER visits are important too; ER visits is our [indiscernible]. We read the public hospitals transcripts you know the four or five of them that are available, and they've all been very candid about it. They are obviously all hoping right that electives come back, the system is, the economics of the system depend on it. But what guarantees that the ER business are going to be same, and what guarantees that elective can ever get back more than 75% of what they were for the foreseeable future, and has a big impact on admissions. People are throwing around numbers, much better than that in the third quarter. I don't know, I don't know that we have enough to believe that and we have to run plans, company plans and all the stuffs based on the number; that's why we want everyone to know.

Larry Solow

Analyst

What are you guys sort of from a high level, are you incorporating sort of we stay -- we stay the course on the elective side and admission sort of slowly come down more as hopefully COVID subsides a little bit. Is that sort of your view? In down the middle. I would say. Is that -- would that be like sort of down the middle Vivek?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I think we are probably a little bit more cautious down the middle. I mean I think we think Q2 could be really challenging and Q3 could also be challenging, if there is any hope it's certainly later in the year.

Larry Solow

Analyst

Right. And how do -- you mentioned sort of, obviously this whole pandemic hangs a light on sort of the importance of the industry. How do you think does it impact you guys specifically over the sort of mid to long term, how you will operate your business assuming COVID is even if it's a couple of -- hopefully a two year -- two to three year thing and then it's somewhat under control, do you from a really high level, do you see things you could do better, any thoughts on...?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

From a really high level it doesn't actually change that much what we were doing. We were just -- this was our business and it is our business and we had to, we had to tweak production up and down, we have to stop-start on installations, but it doesn't actually change that much of what we're doing. There are product features that we want to deliver on in our development road maps in each of the segments and it may be sharpens thinking around some of those, and as we grind, right, we know that we're not going to go away from the system. We grind a way for the next opportunity to help present itself.

Larry Solow

Analyst

All right. On the pump side?

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Make sure we have customers that have -- are on the best footing, right, and believe in what we're doing right.

Larry Solow

Analyst

Right. And on the system side, you mentioned sort of you came into the year with probably your greatest opportunity or positioning in a long time to continue to begin to take some share. Obviously, obviously this holds you back a little bit, but has the competitive environment or your opportunity really has, will that, could that potentially slipped through your hands? Or is that kind of just shift to the right? I know your competitor also has -- facing issues, regulatory issues that probably won't be, sounds like it won't be resolved too soon.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

I think like we did in the last call, we don't really want to comment on it. It has been -- guess we've lost time is what's going on and so we don't know whether we get time back or not, we just have to get out there and execute, but we still believe the opportunities is good as it's ever been for us. I mean do work on the products and figure it out. We have the full portfolio with all the consumables to go along with it. So we feel like we're well positioned and we just have to execute.

Larry Solow

Analyst

Okay. And just last question on the oncology piece. You mentioned that you gotten some better traction outside the US, it sounds like you don't expect to really get too much traction in the US until things calm down on the...

Vivek Jain

Analyst

It's been a little bit of a more complicated story. We were short product for most of last year. We released it first into the US market. We had a big surge of product taken in the US market in Q4. And then we released it to the international markets at the beginning of this year. As a result of all of that related to US, we didn't have quite the same store reordering in the US, plus and then the pandemic hit and slowed things down from an implementation perspective. That probably flipped the US starts to look a bit more normal, international probably cool off of it now we put some product out there for the next 90 days or so. But it is dependent on the ability to get into hospitals in service, train and switch people over and that has been challenging obviously the last six, seven or eight weeks, we lost time.

Larry Solow

Analyst

Okay, great. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Vivek Jain

Analyst

Okay, that's it. We appreciate very much. We know everybody is buys, it's a difficult time out there. We appreciate everything that all participants are doing here. We appreciate people interest in our company and just like we had in previous years we'll come back on Q2 to tell exactly where we think the world is. Thanks very much folks. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.