Earnings Labs

Perrigo Company plc (PRGO)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2015

$11.53

+0.30%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.74%

1 Week

-1.89%

1 Month

-5.72%

vs S&P

+2.60%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Kayla, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Perrigo Company Plc Second Quarter Calendar Year 2015 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. I will now hand today's call over to Mr. Art Shannon. Please go ahead, sir.

Arthur J. Shannon - Vice President, Investor Relations and Global Communications, Perrigo Co. Plc

Management

Thank you very much, Kayla. Welcome to Perrigo's Second Calendar Quarter Earnings Call. A copy of the earnings release we issued this morning is available on our website at perrigo.com. Also on our website is the slide presentation for this call. As you know Perrigo believes in being transparent and open to our investors. Following today's conference call we will be actively reaching out to investors over the next few weeks. Before we proceed with the call I'd like to remind everyone that during the process of this call, management will make certain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the important information for investors and shareholders and Safe Harbor language regarding these statements in our press release issued this morning. Following management's review of the presentation we will open up the call for questions. I'd like to now turn the call over to Perrigo's Chairman and CEO, Joe Papa. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Art, and welcome everyone to Perrigo's Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Also joining me today is Judy Brown, Perrigo's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. For our agenda today first I will make a few comments on the quarter. Next Judy will go through the details of the second quarter results. Then I will give you an overview of our recent success in both store brand and prescription product approvals. And finally, reiterate our position on Mylan's unsolicited offer to acquire Perrigo. Finally, you will have an opportunity for question and answers. Before we get into the agenda however, I'd like to start by thanking Perrigo employees for their diligent focus, which has led to adjusted net income growth of 37%. Even with all the noise you've been following over the past few months, our nearly 13,000 Perrigo…

Operator

Operator

Please limit your time to one question. Please hold while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from Louise Chen.

Louise Chen - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So one question that we often get is how much growth is left for Perrigo over the longer term, especially in light of some of the news events that have happened recently? Are you just at the beginning, middle, or end of the company's growth? And how committed are you as a management team to see this through? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, Louise, thanks for your question. I mean I think the commentary that I will offer is that we see the growth opportunities as been very substantial for the Perrigo company. Number one, relative to where we sit as a company. We really think there's three mega trends that continue to drive the business, each of them contributing to the growth. First one is just what I would call the demographics and the intensity of usage of pharmaceuticals. We expect to go up as we've just seen growth in the population, and more importantly growth of the over 65 population that uses 2.7x more pharmaceuticals. Number two, we expect the continued movement form national brand to store brand. That's a trend that we continue to see even despite some of the new launches that have occurred. We continue to expect to see more products shift – more consumers shift from national brand to store brand. And number three, it's the movement of new products that are today prescription moving over-the-counter. We expect that will continue to also contribute to our growth. So we still think there's a significant growth opportunity. On top of that though what I think – the second part of your question – is that we see tremendous opportunities now that we've aligned and acquired the Omega organization, and what that means for us on the Branded Consumer business. And importantly the same things that have helped Perrigo grow in the past, where we bolted on incremental assets. We think we can do that same thing. We think the GSK asset, the Yokebe asset are just the beginning of things that we can bolt on as we look to continue to grow that Omega asset. So we're really excited about the future. And I think that's just a full review of how excited we feel about where we can go with this business. Operator, next question?

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Randall Stanicky.

Randall S. Stanicky - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks guys. I just have a two part question. First, Joe, you have spent a lot of time highlighting your exposure to what I'll characterizes as a much more stable consumer and consumer-facing business. What's your appetite to add more generic exposure outside of a Mylan transaction? And how do you think about formulation technology, geography, and then possible size? Then I have one quick follow-up. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. So on the question of what we've done, you're absolutely right. We've built our business. We've done some additional acquisitions, most notably the Omega acquisition. Now that we're sitting at approximately 75% of our revenues are very strong revenues in our consumer-facing business, we think that gives us a very durable platform for the future. But as I've said in the past our – I cannot say it more strongly – that our Rx business is a very unique business. It is a business model with incredible, incredible margins. Most recent RX margins – let me just get the specific amount, I don't want to give you an inappropriate number – but the most recent gross margin was 64.8% with a 49.5% operating margin. That's a very unique Rx business. If I can find additional assets that fit into that – and that means that there's some degree of difficulty in producing them. For us it has always been extended topicals, things absorbed topically, dermatology, respiratory, nasal, ophthalmic, et cetera, I'm going to continue to look for those types of assets. So I do think there are some out there, and we'll continue to look for them. So I don't want to limit us only to consumer. I do think there are some Rx assets that would make sense to us as a company, notwithstanding, as you said, the Mylan situation for us. Is that what you were looking for on the formulation comment?

Randall S. Stanicky - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just the second, or part B of my one question would be just, you called out on slide 7 the smoking cessation and the store brand growth over national. And I just wanted to get a sense, has GSK come back? Have you seen that impact? And are you growing through that return? And how much of what I think is about a $250 million base for you, how much of that do you think you can hold onto if GSK does return? Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: GSK is back in the marketplace to be clear. And we are continuing to grow through this situation. And as I said in the part of the call it is a very good business, very large business for us. But one that we think has tremendous upside for us in the future, especially now as we've acquired the GSK branded assets, not U.S. assets, but ex U.S. assets, most notably in Europe. We think that gives us another opportunity to grow the product. One of the unique items about Perrigo is now paired with Omega can do something that Omega couldn't do by itself, Perrigo couldn't do by itself. We could buy those GSK assets that were available in Europe. So not only do we see it growing here in the United States, as evidenced by the IMS or the IRI data, but also we see the opportunity to grow our smoking cessation category in Europe and around the world. So we're really excited about it. We think we'll continue to grow that business very consistent what we've seen historically.

Randall S. Stanicky - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

That's great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Sumant Kulkarni from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Sumant S. Kulkarni - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thanks. I'm going to ask my one question plus, plus, plus. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well done, Sumant.

Sumant S. Kulkarni - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

How much more leverage is there in your system on distribution selling and administrative expense? And where do you see the opportunities for cost reduction if there are any at Perrigo right now? Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. I'll start. Judy, you might want to add to what I say. But I guess I'll say we think there's plus, plus, plus opportunity, Sumant. Specifically what am I saying? First of all on the leverage we're seeing is that there is no doubt that as we do additional M&A, we think there's chances to just get more items on the truck, as we ship our truck from Perrigo to our large retailers. So that's both here in the United States, but also now as we're doing those acquisitions, bolt on acquisition in Europe. So we clearly think there's a chance to leverage additional margin or leverage the P&L. Second comment I would say is that I don't want to miss the chance to say it one more time. The supply chain team from Perrigo and our entire operational and manufacturing group have just done an outstanding job of just running our facilities very efficiently and finding continuous improvement projects to lower our cost of goods sold. That has given us tremendous leverage in our P&L and especially in the margin structure as I talked about. Our Consumer Healthcare operating margin this quarter at 21.4% is – it's certainly an all-time record. And I think really reflects the fact of the team just working very well to take cost out of the system and allow us to leverage what we've done and historically and just do more of it. Judy, anything you want to add? Judy L. Brown - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President:…

Sumant S. Kulkarni - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Just on how much cost could come out of the system. But I think you touched upon that. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Okay. Operator, next question?

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Maris from BMO Capital Markets.

David W. Maris - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Good morning. Joe, we agree with you that the offer significantly undervalues Perrigo. But one of the things the Allegan did when they had an unsolicited offer is that they drew a very bright line between the two different business management styles and business models. Some of that – done a little bit so far. But today you mentioned a bit about how Perrigo has best in class compliance. After the earnings being out on the road to talk a little bit about this unsolicited offer, is it your intention to do maybe a stronger job in explaining the differences? Do you see a difference in the corporate cultures? And then separately if the (35:01) in their favor, do you intend to then reach out to other interested parties? And are there other interested parties? Thank you. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So you asked a lot, David. I'm going to try to get through all of them. So first of all, thank you for your commentary on supporting our position that this offer by Mylan substantially undervalues the Perrigo Company. On the question of management style, there's no doubt there are differences in the management style of the two companies. I really don't want to go into any of the positives and negatives on this one. There will be a time and place for that should that get to the point. I think what we've tried to focus on predominantly right now, though, is that we're very proud of what we've accomplished. We're very proud of winning the Corporate Governance large-cap company of the year. That's something that Todd and the entire team worked very hard at accomplishing. And we're very proud of things like that. We're very proud of our corporate culture and what we've accomplished as a team. The Perrigo team has been together for the most part, this entire team, we've been together for going on nine years now. So it's a team that knows each other very well, knows how to get things done. And importantly delivers on the bottom line. Yes, we have challenges like any other team. But we've done a great job working together as a team and achieving great results, both for making quality affordable healthcare more affordable for people all over the world. So we're excited. And as we think about the future, there's even more we think we can do to make this a reality, especially knowing that we think we're in a winning spot in healthcare. We think we've got a durable position over the long term. If, at some point, the Mylan team wins their shareholder vote, then we can talk more about it at that time. Right now, I think we want to stay focused on continuing to drive our Base Plus Plus Plus strategy for the future.

David W. Maris - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Great. Well, thank you very much. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Operator next question?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Marc Goodman from UBS.

Marc Goodman - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Morning. So first in Consumer, the discontinued sales were unusually high. Can you just give us a little more color on that? Second, Omega, just remind us first of any seasonality in that business. And second, you mentioned distribution. How much are distribution sales relative to like just regular consumer direct product sales? Or maybe I didn't understand it. And then third in the generics business, just remind us of where we are in this price increase dynamic and how sustainable you feel like those increases are? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. I'll probably take the first question on the Consumer Healthcare and the third question. Judy, let me do them both and then you can talk about Omega and the distribution and then the Omega seasonality question. So on Consumer Healthcare, yes, there are discontinued products. That's a normal part of what we do at Perrigo. Let me try to describe it, because it is a good question, Marc, that you're asking. As always, we continue to refresh our portfolio to stay even with the national brand equivalent approach to our business. So that means there are changes that occur in the portfolio. So an easy example is in our pet healthcare business. This year, you know we launched our fipronil plus. That is obviously a new product, a very exciting new product for us. And we've done well with it. Having said that, though, we had a fipronil with nobeloron (38:33) as part of our business, as the result of launching the fipronil plus, we decided that it was appropriate to discontinue the fipronil nobeloron (38:44). When we do that, though, we find ourselves promoting products that are having a national brand equivalent product, which is always good. Also in that…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Gregg Gilbert from Deutsche Bank.

Gregg Gilbert - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, guys. I'll stick to a two parter. First on CHC, what can you do organically to improve revenue growth trends for CHC? And inorganically do you see acquisitions of size potentially out there for CHC in the U.S.? And the second part of the question, Joe, was touched on earlier but not addressed head on. Under what circumstances would the board officially explore all strategic options for the company? Or should we assume that's already underway? And I'm curious how that plays into your prediction that there would be a – quote – difficult path to completion between that 50% and the 80%? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. On the question of organic growth for CHC, Gregg, always – it's – there's always going to be some amount of growth relative to just the demographics and population. Just some of growth, it's going to be from national brand switching to store brand. But the biggest part of the growth and the biggest exciting part of the growth is when we launch those new product. When we have a chance to – which we hope in very, very near future, certainly over the next 12 months to 24 months – launch the equivalent of Flonase, launch the equivalent of a Nexium, a Mucinex D, a Mucinex family, Aratozine (43:26) softgel, just to name a few. Those are the big ones that we think will help propel our growth. And it's why we said with confidence that we expect to launch over $1 billion of new products in the next 3 years, when you put these types of products into the marketplace. We think there's a significant return for our shareholders. On the question of inorganic Consumer Healthcare growth, yes, we do believe…

Gregg Gilbert - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

That's helpful color. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Linda Bolton Weiser from B. Riley. Linda Bolton Weiser - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Hi. Thank you. So you gave quite a bit of color on the Omega and the good sales there and the new products and the seasonality. But I was curious about in terms of the new products, do you have a window into like how does 2016 look relative to new product sales? Would it be kind of higher or lower then what we're seeing in 2015? And then secondly, Joe, if you could just give a little more explanation on the omeprazole magnesium approval? I mean to consumers it's known as Prilosec OTC, and it's kind of transparent to them I think what it's actually made of. So is that going to be a cannibalistic product? Or are you actually going to get more shelf space by putting another product on the shelf? Can you just explain that a little? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So let me just start with – I'll start with some comments on our new product portfolio. And, Judy, if you want to add anything to that please free to do that. First of all our – what I think the best thing I can say right now and what we have said out in the marketplace is that we expect $1 billion in new products over the next 3 years. The majority of those products will be on our consumer side as we've said that, just realizing that approximately 75% of our revenue is on the consumer side. Admittedly that's looking at both Omega and Perrigo together. But that majority of it will be on the consumer side. The only final comment I would say is…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Elliot Wilbur from Raymond James. Elliot Wilbur - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks. Good morning. And you've touched on this subject matter I guess a couple times, but maybe we could explore it in a little bit more detail. Because I do think it's an important trend break and certainly we'll entertain questions about durability. But specifically the gross margin performance in the Consumer Healthcare segment, obviously a record level and well above recent performance trends. And certainly Perrigo of nonbelievers I guess over the years have sort of pointed to absence of margin expansion even with growth. And this quarter obviously stands out as a dramatic exception just sort of that trend. And just thinking about a couple of the push/pull factors here, specifically the discontinued products. I would assume that those were relatively low margin. And also the continued shrinkage of the contract manufacturing business. Those had positive impacts on margin trends, but you also talked about operating efficiencies as well. So maybe just a little bit more granularity there so that we could perhaps understand the durability of the performance this quarter going forward? Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. So, Elliot, you actually know our business very well. I congratulate you. You've touched on them. I mean I... Elliot Wilbur - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: I'm clearly – I come – I'm for sale, Joe, at the right price. Just throw that out there. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So getting back to the question, the gross profit, absolutely. I mean you hit on it. Very – product mix was important. We sold more of the higher margin, less of the lower margin items. That obviously has an impact…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jason Gerberry from Leerink Partners.

Jason M. Gerberry - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So just curious on Omega I think you provided the growth of the top 20 brands year on year. Just kind of curious if you'd be willing to provide the year-on-year growth relative to the prior year quarter? And then, Joe, just curious with Pfizer terminating the Lipitor OTC switch program, just curious your updated thoughts on whether there's life for the statins in the OTC channel? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. I don't know. We haven't given out specific numbers on Omega for its growth, but it is double digits I think is probably the way I'd refresh – rephrase the question. Judy L. Brown - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So on a constant currency basis the top 20 were 11% year-over-year. For the whole portfolio directionally mid-teens would have been the year-over-year growth. You've got some noise in there with foreign currency, et cetera, et cetera, but approximately 14%, 15%. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And the second part of the question was on statins and Pfizer's decision on Lipitor. I think as I've always said I never thought it was 100% chance of probability. I did say 60/40. It appears though that the results of the Pfizer clinical trial did not result in patients going on to see their healthcare providers. I think in that situation it's probably unlikely that statins will come to the marketplace. I can't rule out somebody else will try it with a new refreshment and view on it. But I think based on this last attempt by Pfizer, I think it's probably unlikely that we'll see statins in the near future come to the marketplace for OTC.

Jason M. Gerberry - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Annabel Samimy from Stifel. Annabel E. Samimy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to just touch on CHC a bit more. You kind of answered this, but it was supposed to be a big animal health quarter, as you were selling into the channel for the season. And it seems like there was actually some declines. And you had mentioned that you had switched over product. But as you look at animal health is there as big – is it as big an upside opportunity as you expected? And to what extent do you need to supplement Consumer Health in general with inorganic growth? And are you placing more priority on Omega right now and growing European consumer side as opposed to the U.S. consumer side? And just a separate question on guidance clarification. It does or does not include the GSK products and the German nutritionals? Thanks. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. So I think I got about five parts question in there. I think I'll try to get them all. On the question of animal health. Animal health performed reasonable, but it did have a problem. The problem was that – it was Merial. Merial's influence on two parts of it. One part of it was clearly the introduction of that second store brand equivalent product that which we believed – continue to believe is a breach of our agreement. We'll find out. And play that out in the court system at some point into the future. The second part of the animal health story, they also had some contract manufacturing business. That is part of what we saw. The base business, though, in terms of what we do…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from David Risinger from Morgan Stanley. Emil Chen - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. This is actually Emil on for Dave. Just a quick question, you mentioned priority in consumer. Can you discuss the prioritization in terms of inorganic versus organic? Do you guys view in these that you need to do something inorganically in the near term, especially against the stock out of $1 billion over the next three years organically? Thank you. Joseph C. Papa - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think probably the best way I answer that question is based on our history. I think we've always sought to have a balance of both the organic and inorganic in our growth. And I think we'll continue to look at that. We think doing both is really the best answer for any company out there. So we'll seek to do the inorganic to be clear, looking at those bolt-on transactions. We think they're very valuable and very accretive to our shareholders. So we'll continue to look at those. But the important comment about what we do every day here at Perrigo is try to find a quality product, make it more affordable, and use our research and development efforts to come out with the new product flow. I mean I think just my commentary on new products for us is really critical. As I said, to my recollection, this is an all-time record of having in one week three ANDA approvals from the FDA. But look at what they are. They are products that – AndroGel 1.62%, first to file. Advil fast release, to our knowledge, also first to file, and certainly will be out there first approval for sure. Omeprazole magnesium, yes, we launched an omeprazole base product into the marketplace going back now almost seven years ago. But we are not content to just sit there. And we want to continue to go after the national brand equivalent. We have those opportunities. We're going to continue to take them to make sure we make a quality product, make it more affordable for society, both here in the United States and around the world. And that's what we think is really exciting and motivating to us as a company. Operator, I think I have time for maybe one more question.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jami Rubin from Goldman Sachs. Jami Rubin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Judy, I have a question for you and then a follow-up for you, Joe. When you talked about the second half of the year with each of the businesses, you threw a little bit of cold water in terms of expecting higher expenses, lower margins, et cetera. Or that second quarter was sort of a peak. Are you blessing the lower end of the $7.50 to $8 guidance range? And what are the key variables to that $0.50 difference? And then just, Joe, a follow-up and maybe this is not a fair question, but I think we're all trying to get at this. In the absence of a white knight investor for Perrigo, how do you drive upside to your share price as a standalone company? Just based on consensus estimates, the stock trades at a 24 multiple now on this year's earnings, a 22 multiple on next year's, which is comparable to Celgene. And clearly, while you've done a great job with deal activity and top line growth, if you strip out Omega, there was no top line growth this quarter. So how do you think about driving upside from a multiple as high as it is, in the absence of consolidation, where Perrigo is involved? Thanks. Judy L. Brown - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I will take your first part first. So I never like to throw cold water on anything, that's such a downer. I just wanted to make sure... Jami Rubin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Well, this is your opportunity to clarify that. Thank you. Judy L. Brown - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: All right, all sunshine. So just wanted…

Operator

Operator

This is the end of today's call. You may now disconnect.