Andy Wilson
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open
Thanks for the kind words, Rob. And good afternoon, everyone. I also want to express my appreciation to the many inspirational people who have helped me throughout my time at PerkinElmer. I'd like to wish you all and especially our new CFO; Jamey Mock continued success in the future. I'll now move on to the result for the first quarter of 2018, where I'll provide some additional color on our served end market, summary on our financial results for the first quarter, as well as details around our 2018 guidance for the second quarter and full year. We were pleased with the start to 2018, as reported revenue increased 25% and adjusted earnings per share increased 15% over the first quarter of last year, exceeding our expectations set back in January. Adjusted revenues in the first quarter grew to $644 million with organic growth of approximately 6%. Foreign exchange representing a tailwind of approximately 5% and acquisitions adding approximately 14%. By business segment, diagnostics represented approximately 40% of total sales with organic revenue growth of approximately 7.5% for the first quarter driven by solid organic revenue growth in EUROIMMUN. Discovery and Analytical Solutions representing approximately 60% total sales grew approximately 5% organically in the first quarter highlighted by strength in the life sciences end markets, specifically from our informatics and OneSource offering. We are pleased to see continued solid order demand in the quarter and as a result we were able to build additional backlog giving us momentum entering the second quarter. I'll provide some additional color on both businesses in a moment. We experienced healthy growth across all major geographies with high single digit organic revenue growth in Asia, mid single digit organic revenue growth in the Americas and in Europe. This represents three consecutive quarters of growth across all major geographies. In the BRIC regions we experienced high teen’s organic revenue growth driven by continued strength in Brazil, a very strong performance in India and mid teen’s organic revenue growth in China. Moving to the details of our operating results. First quarter adjusted gross margins were 48.6%, up 20 basis points from the prior year on a reported basis and up approximately 100 basis points on an FX neutral basis. Reported results were favorably impacted by EUROIMMUN and benefits from our productivity initiatives, partially offset by unfavorable mix and the dilutive impact of foreign exchange. Adjusted SG&A was 26.6% up 60 basis points from the prior year with the addition of EUROIMMUN being the primary driver of the increase. Research and development expenditures were 7.1% of adjusted revenue, up approximately 70 basis points driven by continued investments in Vanadis and the inclusion of EUROIMMUN. As a result, operating - adjusted operating margin was 14.9% down 110 basis points on a reported basis. On an FX neutral basis, adjusted operating margin was consistent with our plan and down approximately 20 basis points due mostly to the seasonality of EUROIMMUN profitability. Please note that as of January 1st, 2018 we adopted - recently issued pension accounting standards and have restated prior years. The impact versus our prior guidance is an increase in operating costs for approximately $2 million per quarter with an offsetting increase in other income. There is no net impact to adjusted EPS. Because foreign exchange is having a greater impact on our forecasted revenue relative to our guidance and EUROIMMUN's cost structure significantly changes our earnings flow through from changes in foreign exchange rates, I wanted to briefly describe this dynamic. Prior to the acquisition of EUROIMMUN changes in our euro and Chinese yuan denominated revenue resulted in a mid teens operating margin flow through based on the global distribution of our production costs and operating expenses. As we have discussed roughly 75% of EUROIMMUN's revenue is in Europe and China and is split approximately 45% in Chinese yuan and 35% in euro. However, as most of EUROIMMUN's production and R&D expenses are in Germany over 70% of their expenses are in euros. As a result, this affects PerkinElmer's overall margin flow through on changes in the value of the euro, as our euro expenses now slightly exceeds our euro revenue. Consequently an increase in the value of the euro relative to the dollar increases our revenue, but results in a slight reduction in operating profit. Also we are now more exposed to movements in the Chinese yuan relative to the euro because the change in the Chinese yuan, euro rate will now flow through at roughly 25% impact on operating profit. Given the foreign exchange movements in the first quarter, we experienced significantly more reported revenue, but a slight headwind in the P&L as the euro appreciated much more against the dollar than the Chinese yuan. For the full year, the foreign exchange impact on our revenue based on current FX rates will be approximately $80 million or $55 million more than we estimated at the beginning of the year. However, this additional revenue will add less than a penny of earnings operating earnings based on current rates. Of course, the flipside of this dynamic is that if the dollar strengthens versus the euro reducing our represented revenues our income will not be materially impacted to the downside. Despite the current FX environment putting some pressure on operating margins, we continue to expect to deliver strong adjusted operating margin improvement over the remaining three quarters to meet our guided range of 70 to 90 basis points of margin expansion in 2018. Turning to adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter, we exceeded the midpoint of our guidance range by $0.03 to $0.63, driven primarily by better organic growth and a lower tax rate. The lower tax rate is a result of recently passed Treasury Department guidance on the new tax law to provide some more favorable outcome than we originally anticipated. Looking further into the key drivers within our segments for the first quarter, let's start with our Discovery and Analytical Solutions business, where first quarter results exceeded our expectations, driven by strong high single digits organic revenue growth in life sciences versus low single digit organic revenue growth in the applied market verticals. Life sciences strength was driven by double-digit growth in both OneSource and our informatics business, as well as strong direct discovery sales and high content screening. Applied market growth experienced mid single digit growth in food and environmental, but was partially offset by softness in the industrial end markets, which we attribute to the timing of instrument orders. Switching to Diagnostics. Core diagnostics revenue grew 4% organically consistent with our expectations as we experienced strong high single digits growth in the first quarter last year. In our core Diagnostics business, our infectious disease business, which exclusively serve the emerging markets continues to show strong growth as it increased mid teens during the first quarter with particular strength coming from Haoyuan and Tulip. The reproductive health business grew mid single digits. A strength in newborn screening in China was partially offset by difficult comparisons in the US. And finally, our applied genomics business was down slightly in the quarter as expected due to strong micro fluidic sales in Q1 of last year. Broad based growth across all disease states help EUROIMMUN exceed organic revenue growth expectations for the quarter up mid teens. Geographically for EUROIMMUN China and Germany were strong and in the US during the first quarter of this year we delivered over half of the amount sold during all of last year. We remain confident of future revenue opportunities, driven by a focus on innovation, time to market and strong customer focus. I hope that you've had a chance to read the Nature of Scientific Reports article on the feasibility of our Rolling Circle Amplification Technology for Vanadis for trisomy 21 detection, which we believe to be as accurate as current generation - gene sequencing methods. As Rob mentioned, Vanadis is gathering clinical data for all three trisomy's as part of their CE Mark application and we continue to expect the second quarter 2018 filing and commercial launch shortly after approval. Looking down the income statement, adjusted net interest and other expense for the first quarter was approximately $12 million and our adjusted tax rate was approximately 17%, which I refer to - referenced previously. Turning to the balance sheet. As we announced we finished the quarter with approximately $2.1 billion of debt and $180 million of cash. We exited the quarter with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of approximately 3.4 times. Turning to our cash flow performance. Our first quarter operating cash flow from continuing operations was impacted by the timing of pension payment and earn-outs related to Tulip, coupled with a temporary increase in working capital from higher receivables due to new OneSource contract initiated in the period, as well as higher inventory levels supporting production moves in Singapore and China in the first half of the year. We remain confident in our ability to deliver our full year free cash flow commitment for approximately $365 million. To wrap up the first quarter, we are very pleased with a solid start to the year, as we delivered better than expected organic revenue growth including a stronger than expected performance from EUROIMMUN, which continues to outpace the market. During the quarter, Vanadis achieved all key milestones and remain on track to launch - to our launch timeline later this year. Our end markets continue to very healthy in both our core and focus areas and we’re encouraged by our ability to build backlog in the quarter. In addition, we continue to have a good line of sight on adjusted operating margin expansion and free cash flow generation for the remaining three quarters, all of which we believe will contribute to a successful 2018 fiscal year for our key stakeholders. As Rob mentioned, given our results in the first quarter we are increasing our 2018 revenue and adjusted EPS guidance. We now expect full year 2018 reported revenue to be approximately $2.8 billion, which represents 5% organic growth in the base business coupled with EUROIMMUN generating approximately $380 million of revenue, which now reflects slightly stronger organic growth and the impact of the current foreign exchange environment. For the full year, we now expect foreign exchange to be at $65 million tailwind exclusive of EUROIMMUN revenues, which is 40 million more than we estimated in January. Our organic revenue growth guidance assumes 6% organic revenue growth in diagnostics, excluding EUROIMMUN and 5% in DAS driven by a mix of life sciences and applied markets. Geographically we continue to expect mid single digit organic revenue growth in the Americas and Europe with mid to high single digit organic revenue growth in Asia. We are taking our full year adjusted earnings per share to $3.60, which represents approximately 24% adjusted earnings per share growth. Our new guidance incorporates the first quarter out-performance of $0.03, slightly higher organic growth, which adds approximately $0.02 and we now anticipate our full year tax rate of approximately 17% versus our initial guidance of approximately 18.5%, which adds an incremental $0.05 to the remainder of the year. For the second quarter of 2018, we're forecasting reported revenues of 680 million, which represents 6% organic revenue from the base business, 15% growth in EUROIMMUN and foreign exchange of 5%. In terms of adjusted earnings per share guidance, we are forecasting adjusted earnings per share of $0.86 with minimal benefit from foreign exchange headwinds. This concludes my prepared remarks. Sara, at this time we’d like to open up the call to questions.