Mark P. de Raad
Analyst · Wedbush
Thank you, Joe, and hello everybody. Reported total revenue and product revenue for the first quarter was $139.8 million and $132.2 million, respectively. As indicated in our press release today, these numbers include the $2.6 million first quarter adjustment, which I will describe in more detail shortly. Having said that, the rest of my comments regarding our Q1 total and product revenues will exclude the impact of that same Q1 product revenue adjustment. First quarter 2014 total revenue, including royalties, was $142.4 million on an adjusted basis, up 4.7% or 5.2% on a constant currency basis versus the first quarter of 2013. Product revenue was $134.8 million on an adjusted basis, up 4.8% or 5.3% on a constant currency basis versus the first quarter of 2013. Compared to the prior year quarter, our 20 -- our Q1 2014 product revenues were negatively impacted by approximately $650,000 due primarily to the weakening of the yen versus the U.S. dollar. Our first quarter GAAP product revenues included a reduction of $2.6 million in product sales related to a true-up of prior period estimated deferred revenues for one U.S. distributor. For the last 9 quarters, we have not been able to secure inventory reports on a reasonable terms from this one U.S. distributor and as a result, we were required to estimate their quarter end inventory levels. In the most recent quarter, we were able to obtain these reports, including reports from prior periods. These new reports indicated that our prior estimates of this U.S. distributor's channel inventory in 2011 and 2012 had been too low by approximately $1 million and $1.6 million, respectively. Because this is a correction of an estimate, we have accounted for this cumulative change in this estimate by reducing Q1 2014 product revenues by $2.6 million. Rainbow revenue grew 23% in the first quarter to $12.9 million, attributable primarily to higher sensor sales. In addition, continuing the trend observed last year, approximately 50% of our first quarter total rainbow revenues were consumables. Our first quarter rainbow sales were supported by the direct shipment of the remaining quantities of a large international disposable CO sensor order that we first noted in Q4 2013. And in a few moments, Joe will provide some additional information on our Q1 2014 SpHb revenues. Our worldwide end user or direct business, which includes sales through just-in-time distributors, grew 5.3% in the first quarter on an adjusted basis to $113.7 million versus $108 million in the year-ago period. Our direct business represented 84% of total product revenue in the quarter, consistent with the prior year period. OEM sales, which made up the remaining 16%, rose by 2.4% to $21.1 million compared to $20.6 million in the same period of 2013. By geography, total adjusted U.S. product revenue declined by 3.9% to $90.6 million compared to $94.3 million in the same quarter of 2013. We believe that the decline is the result of a combination of factors, including the near 5% decline in year-over-year hospital census, which in turn may have been caused in part by the unusually difficult winter weather on the East Coast this past quarter and/or the impact of the Affordable Care Act rollout. In addition, as we noted in our last call, we continued to experience the negative short-term pricing impact of having closed a record amount of contract renewals in 2013. Although these contract renewals provide us with the long-term benefit of having secured additional sensor purchase commitments, the short-term negative impact is immediate as the new lower sensor pricing goes into effect. And Joe will speak to the current U.S. hospital environment in a little bit more detail later on. In the meantime, the great news in the quarter was that our international product revenues of $44.2 million rose 29% in the first quarter of 2014, or 30% on a constant currency basis versus $34.4 million in the same period last year. The increase is due primarily to growth in both our EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. And because of the strong first quarter international results, our international revenues represented approximately 33% of total product revenue in the first quarter of 2014, which was up from 27% a year ago. The strong o U.S. growth helped, of course, to offset the product revenue decline in the U.S. acute care business. Together, the combination allowed us to achieve nearly $135 million in adjusted product revenue, which as Joe noted previously, was consistent with our own internal expectations. Our first quarter product gross profit margins was 64.1% compared to 64% in the year-ago period. The first quarter product gross profit margins were negatively impacted by 20 basis points due to the changes in foreign exchange rates on our reported revenues. Our first quarter total gross profit margin, including royalties, was 66%, which was flat from the year-ago period. First quarter 2014 operating expenses were $62.1 million, a decline of 6.5% versus the year-ago quarter. This decline was the result of the Q1 2014 $8 million reversal of an arbitration award and associated legal fees we had previously accrued in Q4 2013. Without the impact of the reversal, our total operating expenses rose by 5.5% versus the year-ago period. This was below our original expectations due mostly to a deferral of the timing of various engineering project-related and selected marketing expenses. SG&A expenses declined by 8% versus the year-ago period to $46.5 million due, again, to the previously noted $8 million arbitration award and legal fee reversal. Without this reduction, our SG&A expenses rose by 7.9% from $50.5 million to $54.5 million, and this increase was due primarily to higher staffing levels related to the full impact of our new worldwide blood management sales team now being on board and higher legal fees. R&D spending of $14 million was flat with the year-ago period as some engineering project and related equipment and supply spending has been deferred until later in the year. First quarter 2014 operating income was $30.2 million, up 22% compared to $23.1 million in the year-ago period. The $7.1 million increase in operating income was primarily attributable, again, to the $8 million arbitration award and legal fee expense reversal as I previously mentioned. Nonoperating income was about $200,000 in the first quarter, primarily due to the translation impact of movements in our foreign exchange rates. This compares with nonoperating expense of $2.3 million in the year-ago period, which was primarily attributable to the negative effects of changes in the value of the U.S. dollar versus the yen and euro. Our first quarter 2014 effective tax rate was 26%, up from 21.2% in the same period last year. The lower prior period rate resulted from the Q1 2013 recognition of the R&D tax benefit from 2012. This 26% was slightly lower than our original expectations of 27% to 29% due to the changes in our projections of our U.S., o U.S. revenues and a decline in the projected 2014 loss of a noncontrolling entity which we are consolidating with our financial statements. First quarter 2014 net income was therefore $22.6 million or $0.39 per diluted share compared to $16.4 million or $0.28 per diluted share in the same prior year period. Our first quarter earnings per share included benefit of $0.09 per diluted share due to the $8 million reversal of the arbitration award and legal fees. Excluding the $0.09 per diluted share, our Q1 2014 earnings per diluted share would have been $0.30, up from $0.28 in the year-ago period. As of March 29, 2014, our days sales outstanding was 51 compared to 52 as of the end of December 28, 2013, and over the same period, inventory turns declined slightly to 3.4 from 3.7. Total cash and cash equivalents as of March 29, 2014, were $117.5 million compared to $95.5 million as of December 28, 2013. The change reflects net cash generated from operations, offset partially by capital expenditures. Now I'll discuss our updated 2014 financial guidance, which is based upon the best information that we have at this point in time and assumes a slightly more conservative outlook for our fiscal 2014 U.S. acute business based upon the current overall macro U.S. hospital environment and is reflected in the lower part of our updated product revenue range. With that, we're now updating our 2014 financial guidance as follows. We are increasing our projected 2014 royalty revenue range from our original $8 million to $28 million to $28 million. This is being done because we did not receive notice of Covidien's intent to discontinue its covenant under the royalty agreement. And at this point, we expect royalties to continue until about October 2018 in view of expiration dates in our current patent portfolio as it relates to the N600. We are now expanding our projected 2014 product revenue range from $570 million to a range of $560 million to $570 million given that we now have to account for the $2.6 million less in revenues related to our Q1 distributor inventory adjustment; also, additional census pressures that we believe are possibly related to the Affordable Care Act implementation, and the downward adjustment of our U.S. acute care ASP assumptions for some of the reasons we noted earlier. In addition, due to the adjustment of our projected ASPs for the remainder of the year, a slight reduction in our projected favorable purchase price variances and the impact of potentially lower total product revenues, we now believe that our product margins will be approximately 65% to 65.5%, slightly lower than the original 66% guidance. Importantly, this revised product gross profit margin will still represent a significant improvement over our 2013 product gross profit margins. And therefore, despite the factors impacting revenues that I noted before, we still expect to deliver the product cost reductions that we had included in our original gross profit margin guidance back in February. We are lowering our revised operating expense guidance, excluding the medical device tax, from $292 million to $284 million. This new guidance includes the $8 million Q1 reduction due to the arbitration and related expense accrual reversal. And importantly, this new operating expense projection includes our best current assessment of our 2014 legal expenses. Although the second half 2014 [ph] trial dates with both Philips and Mindray have been budgeted in these numbers, we still cannot project with any certainty whether our budgeted legal cost for 2014 are sufficient for these or any other legal matters. Because of this unusual level of uncertainty of our legal expenses, we will continue to update you as the year progresses and as we begin to gain some more clarity on the status of the various legal matters currently in progress. Finally, we now expect that our fiscal tax rate will be in the range of 26% to 28% compared to 27% to 29% previously. The slight decline is due to a more favorable mix shift in our updated 2014 revenue forecast as well as the reduction in losses related to a noncontrolling interest entity, which we are required to consolidate. So as a result of these assumptions, we're now projecting a 2014 GAAP earnings per share of $1.24 to $1.33. To reiterate, the $1.24 earnings per diluted share assumes $560 million in product revenue and $28 million in Covidien royalties, while the $1.33 earnings per share assumes $570 million in product revenue and $28 million in Covidien royalties. With that, I'll turn the call back to Joe.