Judy L. Brown
Analyst · Jami Rubin from Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone. As you just heard from Joe, on a consolidated basis, we had a very solid start to the year. During the next few minutes, I'll provide some color commentary on our fiscal 2013 first quarter results by segment and then review our revised expectations for the fiscal year. So let's move directly into the business segments. On Slide 7, you'll note that Consumer Healthcare's first quarter net sales increased 9% year-over-year due to a combination of: an increase in sales of existing products of $36 million in the contract, cough/cold and smoking cessation category; new product sales of $13 million in the gastrointestinal, cough/cold and dermatological category; and $9 million attributable to the acquisition of CanAm. Specifically, sales in the GI category, which includes the store brand versions of Omeprazole and Lansoprazole among other products, were up 6% year-over-year. In total, this combined $58 million increase was partially offset by declines of $17 million in sales of existing products in the analgesics and fem hy categories and $4 million due to discontinued products versus last year. The 90 basis point increase in adjusted gross margin was driven by new products, product mix across the broad CHC portfolio as pricing during the first fiscal quarter was slightly better year-over-year and good cost control in our manufacturing plants. We invested more in CHC R&D projects versus the first quarter last year and DSG&A spend was controlled to a lower percentage of sales, even with the inclusion of CanAm expenses versus this time last year. As a result, adjusted operating margin increased 70 basis points year-over-year, slightly less than the adjusted gross margin expansion. On Slide 8, you can see that net sales within the Nutritionals segment declined 14% year-over-year due to several factors. First, as we noted in August, we fulfilled retail shipments at the end of June in advance of our planned July 1 shutdown of our Vermont plant when we both executed an SAP conversion and commenced the installation of a new $29 million, state-of-the-art, consumer-friendly packaging line to allow our infant formula product to look and feel like the national brand. As we noted on our August 16 call, this shutdown shifted over $10 million of sales that would have taken place during the first fiscal quarter 2013 to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012. Second, regulatory changes in one of the company's main international markets caused a delay in fulfillment of international orders. We expect to resume fulfilling these international orders in the second half of fiscal 2013. Third, VMS sales were lower year-over-year due to increased competition within the category and a decline in sales of approximately $1 million due to discontinued products. While new sales are still currently anticipated within this category during the fiscal year, the timing of these new sales is more heavily weighted to the second half of the fiscal year. Therefore, we are still anticipating sales will improve over the coming quarters. The adjusted gross margin in the Nutritionals segment decreased 160 basis points due to several factors. First, we have been able to maintain the traction made in prior quarters with respect to infant formula pricing and have seen favorable year-over-year manufacturing progress even despite the plant shutdown in the first week of July, both of which were positives. However, the relatively lower volume sales in this category negatively impacted margins, causing approximately 1/3 of the overall margin decrease. Another 1/3 of the decrease was a combination of sales declines and increased inventory cost within our VMS product category, with the remaining 1/3 primarily due to product mix across the smaller product categories in the segment. While our adjusted DSG&A spending was down over $1 million year-over-year due to good cost control, the adjusted operating margin decline was greater than that of the adjusted gross margin on weaker top-line leverage. Now turning to Slide 9. You can see that the Rx business has started fiscal 2013 very well, continuing its strong performance. Net sales growth of 28% was due to a combination of an incremental month of sales from the acquisition of Paddock Labs included in this quarter versus a year ago, new product sales of $8 million and robust gains in our organic Rx business. In fact, Rx sales without the additional month of Paddock grew 13% year-over-year. Adjusted gross profit for the quarter was strong compared to last year due to the same 3 reasons. In Rx, spending on adjusted R&D increased approximately $2 million from last year while DSG&A spend decreased as the team continued its focus on expense management. This allowed the team to translate a slight adjusted gross margin decline into further expansion at the adjusted operating margin level. Next, on Slide 10, you'll see that API's first quarter net sales were impacted by approximately $17 million of lower demand for existing products in the portfolio as a result of increased competition. These decreases were partially offset by $7 million related to the launch of a customer's products with 180-day exclusivity status. As we frequently note, sales of API are highly dependent upon the level of competition in the marketplace for specific materials, as well as the variable ordering patterns of customers on a quarter-over-quarter basis. So we expect revenue choppiness to continue on a go-forward basis. Now some quick highlights on our balance sheet. Excluding cash and current investment, working capital was $639 million at the end of the quarter, up from $560 million at this time last year, reflecting primarily, the impact of our acquisition of the Diabetes Care business, organic growth and investments in product growth initiatives for CHC and nutrition planned for later in the year. As of September 29, 2012 our current and long-term debt on the face of the balance sheet was $1.4 billion, flat sequentially from last quarter. Excluding cash and cash equivalents, our net debt to total capital at the end of our first quarter fiscal 2013 was 27.3%. Net cash flow from operations for the first quarter was $45 million, down from first quarter fiscal 2012 due to growth in operating working capital levels to support the product growth initiatives I just noted, as well as higher payroll and tax payments in the fiscal first quarter versus this time last year. Now I'd like to turn our attention for a moment to the fiscal 2013 plans and walk through a few updates for our global cause allocations on Slide 11. Over the last several years, we've grown rapidly and added more manufacturing sites to our global supply chain footprint. Our team has been actively optimizing activities across our whole integrated network, enabling better cost savings and sharing of operational resources across locations and segments. As mentioned last quarter, it's obviously important that costs are charged to the business segments where the benefits are received and accordingly, we've updated our allocations of these shared costs in this fiscal year to better reflect our more comprehensive global management of the Perrigo supply chain. In order to ease your analysis, we've updated the past 4 quarters' adjusted margins reflect the new allocations. While the adjusted margins changed slightly for each segment, please note that there are no changes to the consolidated Perrigo P&L. The result is that Consumer Healthcare's margins are now slightly higher as the segment was incurring the bulk of the expenses that were used by all the other segments. Conversely, the margins for the other 3 segments have moved slightly lower due to the 3 allocations. Now I'd like to discuss our updated earnings outlook for the full year fiscal '13. On Slide 12, you'll see that we are updating guidance for the Consumer Healthcare segment based upon our October 1 closing of the Sergeant’s transaction. We expect Sergeant’s to add more than $100 million in net sales during the remaining 3 quarters of fiscal 2013. Thus, we now expect the Consumer Healthcare segment revenue to grow 16% to 20% over fiscal 2012. Given the higher gross margins for Sergeants' products, we now expect adjusted gross margins for Consumer Healthcare to be in a range of 32% to 36%, and adjusted operating margin in a range of 17% to 21%. We are not making any adjustments to our guidance for the other segments at this time. Summing these changes back to the consolidated P&L on Slide 13, we now expect revenue growth of 12% to 15% year-over-year, up from the previously stated 10% to 14%. Additionally, we are moving our adjusted operating margin guidance to be between 21% and 24%, tightening the bottom end of the range from last quarter. We expect Sergeant’s to add approximately $0.10 of EPS on an adjusted basis in the remaining 9 months of fiscal 2013, as sales from our Pet Healthcare business are more heavily weighted towards our fiscal first and fourth quarters. In total, we now expect fiscal 2013 adjusted earnings per diluted share to be between $5.45 to $5.65, or year-over-year growth of 9% to 13%. We are increasing our capital expenditure guidance for the year to a range of $120 million to $150 million. This new guidance incorporates our Sergeant’s acquisition, as well as investments in capacity to support updated product pipeline launch assumptions over the next several years. While we realized an $0.08 earnings per share tax benefit in this fiscal quarter due to the resolution of various tax audits and statute expiries, we're not adjusting or full year effective tax rate expectations due to the updated forecasted mix of earnings before tax plus the inclusion of the acquisition of Sergeant’s, whose earnings are predominantly U.S.-based. The Perrigo team is immersed in a very busy start to fiscal 2013. We're in the midst of integrating a new business, launching dozens of new product offerings and building out our capacity and platforms to the longer-term horizon, all while keeping our eye on the ball of servicing customers with the highest quality affordable healthcare products that exceed their expectations. This team is committed to driving continuous improvements to ensure solid execution for this fiscal year, while at the same time, seeking the right opportunities for inorganic investment that meet our stringent criteria. Now I'll turn the call back to Joe.