Gary Haire
Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open
Thanks Joe, and good afternoon. I’m going to take you through our fourth quarter and full-year 2017 financial results. And then I will also take you through our 2018 full-year outlook. Consistent with prior quarters, any reference to organic when we are referring to sales excludes the impact of foreign exchange and M&A activity. Any reference to organic as we talk about adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted EPS excludes the impact of foreign currency gains and losses that are reported in nonoperating other income or expense. Turning to Slide 8. Here's a quick look at our results for the fourth quarter. Sales increased 7.6% organically closing out the year with record sales in our fourth quarter. In the quarter we saw growth accelerate in all of our medical product lines and continued double-digit growth in our Electrochem business. Adjusted EBITDA increased 11% year-over-year and during the quarter we incurred just under $1 million of losses due to foreign exchange impacted by the continued strengthening of the euro versus the dollar. However, the impact is lower this quarter due to restructuring actions we took to reduce our exposure. Excluding this FX impact, and taking into account the foreign exchange gain in last year's number which was $3 million, adjusted EBITDA would have been up nearly 17% year-over-year. Our adjusted net income increased 28% organically when you exclude the impact of the FX losses I just mentioned. Adjusted EPS was $0.96 on a reported basis and includes $0.02 related to the FX. And also worth noting is that our EPS was impacted by about $0.04 from share dilution year-over-year for a total of about $0.06 from these two items. Overall, we had really strong finish to the year with solid execution. Now moving to Slide 9. You could see that fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income and EPS all had double-digit growth year-over-year on an organic basis. Organically adjusted EBITDA increased 17% year-over-year in the quarter. This can be attributed to our stronger sales volumes, as well as improved gross margin which was up a full percentage point versus last year. Organic growth was up 28% for adjusted net income and up 24% for adjusted EPS. This growth included unfavorable year-over-year impact of higher incentive compensation which amounted to about $11 million versus last year's Q4. These higher costs were driven by our stronger performance as we finished the year. On Slide 10, I want to summarize our full year 2017 results. Looking at sales, we had a strong year with 5.3% organic growth. This was led by the Electrochem business growing almost 37%, as well as organic growth of 9% in Cardio & Vascular and almost 6% growth in AS&O. This was partially offset by the decline of about 2% in Cardiac & Neuro. Adjusted EBITDA was up 7% organically which excludes the impact of FX year-over-year. Impacting adjusted EBITDA for the year, was a headwind of approximately $14 million of bonus expense or nonstock incentive compensation given the improved performance versus the prior year and the company meeting its operating metrics. Adjusted net income was up 23% organically which is driven by the improved operating performance, lower interest expense and the lower adjusted effective tax rate which was about 20% in 2017 versus 23% in 2016. Now looking at Slide 11. I want to compare our actual results versus our original guidance that was provided at the beginning of 2017. For sales as we have discussed, we were well above our original guidance range driven by stronger sales than we expected in both the medical and nonmedical business with a combination of better execution across the business in better than expected markets specifically in Electrochem. For adjusted EPS, we're well within the range on a reported basis that were near the high-end of the range when you exclude the impact of FX that FX had on us for the year. Now turning to cash flow on Slide 12. I want to make a few comments around our 2017 cash flow, our debt, leverage, as well as give you some thoughts on our 2018 outlook. As I mentioned before, we're committed to generating continued and sustainable operating cash flow, as well as reducing leverage. We finished the year by generating $34 million of operating cash flow during the fourth quarter for a total of 149 million for the full-year. And this translated into $103 million of free cash flow. Our strong cash flow allowed us to accelerate debt payment throughout the year and we repaid $129 million of debt in 2017, consisting of $98 million in accelerated payments. In addition, we reduced our leverage from 6.1 to 5.6 during the year. Now looking forward to 2018, we will continue to focus on cash flow and reducing our leverage. We anticipate generating over $150 million of operating cash flow and over $100 million of free cash flow in 2018. And we will continue to reduce our leverage with an initial goal of getting below 5.0. With our strong cash flow generation and our efforts to effectively manage working capital, our near-term debt and interest payments remain very manageable. We will continue to monitor markets on a regular basis and evaluate additional opportunities as appropriate, particularly as we move into the back half of the year and look at our existing high-yield notes. Now turning to Slide 18, I'd like to now discuss our full-year outlook for 2018. We expect 2018 full year sales growth to be between 2% and 5% for the year. We believe our revenue outlook appropriately balances product line growth opportunities, as well as market realities and our customer programs. For adjusted EBITDA, we're expecting a range of $305 million to $315 million which would be a growth rate of approximately 7% to 10%. We expect 2018 full-year adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $3.15 to $3.45, an increase of 17% at the midpoint of the guidance. In addition to this guidance, I also want to provide you with some additional information for 2018. We expect capital expenditures to be in a range of $50 million to $55 million for the year and depreciation and amortization to be in the range of $106 million to $108 million. Stock-based compensation is expected to be in a range of $10 million to $12 million for the year and for other operating expenses, we're expecting to spend approximately $10 million to $15 million which is a significant reduction from prior years as the majority of our spending on acquisition and integration activities is now behind us. The 2018 adjusted effective tax rate is expected to be in a range of 20% to 25% and cash back payments are expected to be between $13 million and $15 million for the year. Now in regards to the tax rate, it is very important to note that we're still in the process of analyzing implications of the new Tax Law. Given both the magnitude of the changes involved and that we expect further clarification with regard to the application of certain provisions of the legislation, we're providing a broader range than normal and we've assumed the current target in the middle of this range for our guidance. Now I want to switch gears and I'll cover our product line sales results and then I will turn it back to Joe to cover our new strategy. First starting to Advanced Surgical, Orthopedics and Portable Medical. Sales growth year-over-year was up 11% in the fourth quarter driven by a continued tailwind from one customer's accelerating its sales related to one of their initiatives. Continued ramping up of new products, as well as increased development work which can be lumpy. We expect that we will see year-over-year sales growth continue into the first quarter resulting from the completion of transfer activity, as well as new product ramps. However, we anticipate on offsetting impact in 2018 from the one specific customers inventory management which we expect will lead to a more modest overall growth rate for the full year 2018. Going forward, we believe the large and growing Orthopedic and Advanced Surgical market provides us with significant opportunities to leverage our capabilities in implants, instruments, in arthroscopy in particular. Turning to Slide 16. The Cardio & Vascular product line has been a significant driver of topline growth for us and we once again saw strong year-over-year sales growth in the quarter driven by continued strong demand for existing Integer own products and increasing demand from contract manufactured products, particularly in areas of vascular access and will peripheral vascular. The rolling four quarter sales trajectory continues to remain strong, consistently staying in high single-digits over the last few quarters driven by the continued success of our Cardio & Vascular product offering in most markets. Market momentum remains strong and we continue to have success with both large well established customers, as well as emerging and fast growth customers. We're focusing on the faster growing higher value segments like structural heart, peripheral vascular, and electrophysiology. In addition, we are innovating in areas such as developing faster prototyping turnaround capabilities with the goal of accelerating our customers speed to market and overall success. Looking at Slide 17, sales in the fourth quarter for Cardiac & Neuromodulation stabilized during the quarter where CRM, the markets remains flat. However, our customers experienced a nice return to growth in the quarter. In Neuromodulation, sales remain strong and these product and our customers continue to gain strength in the market. The rolling four quarter sales trend further reflects the stabilization we saw in the fourth quarter. We expect to return to growth in the first half of 2018 as midyear 2017 supply constraints have then resolved and customer activity continues to improve. The Neuromodulation market remains a key driver of long-term growth for the product line. There are many opportunities for continued growth. As the market leading medical device outsourcer, we are focused on accelerating Neuromodulation sales to the active support of customers of all sizes in the design, development and manufacture of everything from components to full systems for customer applications. We continue to execute on our strategy in Cardiac Rhythm Management and Neuro, partnering with customers to provide full component design, development and manufacturing capability that enables success in support growth. We also believe our OEM partners and customers are seeking more comprehensive value-added solutions and supply chain efficiency which Integer is well positioned to provide. Now on Electrochem. Electrochem delivered another strong quarter of growth on a year-over-year basis up 30% in the quarter which translates into 37% for the year. The product line continued to benefit from a recovering energy market, as well as share gains made during the downturn. Electrochem's outlook for 2018 is positive as the team executes on new business wins and continues to drive sales growth and share gain initiatives. However, we do not expect the same level of high year-over-year growth rates as the energy market have reached the point of stabilization. I’ll now turn the call back to Joe.