Earnings Labs

Teleflex Incorporated (TFX)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Sun, Oct 30, 2016

$133.44

-1.53%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Third Quarter Teleflex Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instruction] As a reminder the conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Mr. Jake Elguicze, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir you may begin.

Jake Elguicze

Management

Thanks, operator, and good morning everyone and welcome to the Teleflex Inc. third quarter 2016 earnings conference call. The press release and slides to accompany this call are available on our website www.Teleflex.com. As a reminder this call will be available on our website, and a replay will be available by dialing 855-859-2056 or for international calls 404-537-3406, pass code 97714633. Participating on today’s call are Benson Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Liam Kelly, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Thomas Powell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Benson, Liam and Tom will make some brief prepared remarks, and then we will open up the call to Q&A. Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that some of the matters discussed in the conference call will contain forward-looking statements regarding future events as outlined in our slides. We wish to caution you that such statements are in fact forward-looking in nature, and are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual events or results may differ materially. The factors that can cause actual results or events to differ materially include but limited to factors made in our press release today, as well as our filings with the SEC including our form 10k that can be accessed on our website. With that said I would now like to turn the call over to Benson.

Benson Smith

Chairman

Thank you, Jake. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us this morning. To begin with we are very pleased with our overall financial results for the quarter. As reported on revenue growth number of 2.7%, we increased our adjusted gross margin by 6.6%, adjusted operating margin by 14.7%, adjusted EPS by 12.5%, and had excellent cash accumulation. For the year to-date picture looks even better. By any measure that demonstrates examinant financial leverage throughout our P&L. Longer-range, based on our results this quarter we feel very good regarding our cumulative 16, 17, and 18 expectations. This quarter was without questions one of those occasions where we have demonstrated that we have several different levers to continue to drive shareholder value. We did expect to see an uptick in constant currency revenue between second and third quarter which did not materialize. To have reduced our full-year revenue guidance and when pretty sure that many of your questions will be around revenue. Tom, Liam, and myself will of course cover other areas where we want to provide as much clarity as we can around our revenue numbers. We had three primary causes responsible for revenue shortfall. And while they are affecting our 2016 guidance, none of them give us particular alarm relative to our longer-term outlook. Why do I say that, because underneath the surface are some very encouraging signs in products and markets that are particularly important to us from a sustainable growth perspective. We will elaborate on those points during the course of our discussion today. I would like to begin by just briefly reminding you of Teleflex Inc. overarching strategies. We believe that the number one growth market in terms of the size and impact of Teleflex over the next 10 years is the United States. The…

Liam Kelly

President

Thank you Benson and good morning everyone. For the consolidated company, third quarter 2016 constant currency revenues grew 3.1%. The primary driver of revenue growth this quarter came from increased sales volume of new products which contributed approximately 1.3%. New product sales were particularly strong within our surgical, vascular, and anesthesia product line. Surgical new product sales were driven by increased utilization of products using robotic procedures, further penetration of our EFX offering as well as increased in the amount of percutaneous laparoscopic products sold such as Minilap. Vascular new product revenue increases are attributed to sales of our preloaded antimicrobial and antithrombogenic VPS pace. While in anesthesia the growth is primarily due to increased sales of our Rusch Disposable LED Laryngoscope and LMA unique products with silicone. The next largest driver of revenue growth in the quarter was sales of core products which increased 0.9% versus the prior year. Growth here was driven primarily by two areas, OEM and EMEA. Despite the third quarter improvement as compared to the prior year third quarter, it is our belief that core product volumes were lower this quarter as compared to Q2 due to the distributor destocking issue that Benson referred to earlier. Turning to other components of revenue growth. During quarter three we saw a nice uptick in the average selling price of our products, which drove revenue higher by approximately 0.7%. This was primarily due to increases in Asia as well as increases within our surgical and vascular product lines. Finally, during the third quarter, acquisitions added approximately 0.2% of growth. This was primarily due to a small acquisition that occurred within our OEM business. North American growth for Q3 was approximately 3.6% with approximately 2.2% of that growth coming from new product. As Benson mentioned earlier, the new product…

Thomas Powell

Management

Thanks Liam and good morning everyone. Given the previous discussion of the Company’s revenue growth drivers, I will cover results below the revenue line where we have a very compelling financial story for both the third-quarter and year-to-date results. For the quarter, adjusted gross profit was 245.8 million versus 230.5 million in the prior-year quarter. And the adjusted gross margin increased 200 basis points to 54%. The increase in gross margin reflects the impact of lower manufacturing costs, the impact of favorable fluctuation to the foreign currency exchange rates, and the impact of price increases primarily in the Asia, vascular North America, and surgical North America segments. Also during the third quarter adjusted operating margin increased 250 basis points to 23.7%. The increase was largely the outcome of the gross margin gain, control over discretionary overhead spending, and the impact of the suspension of the medical device excise tax. Improvements were somewhat offset by increase in R&D Investment. Adjusted net interest expense increased to approximately 11.7 million versus approximately 10.8 million in the prior-year quarter. The increase and adjusted interest expense is the outcome of the May 2016 issuance of 10 year 4 7/8 senior unsecured notes, with a proceeds of the issuance being used to redeem a portion of the 3 7/8 in veritable senior subordinated notes, and reduced borrowing under the revolving credit facility. The net results being a modest increase the average interest rate on outstanding borrowing. The interest rate was partially offset by the third quarterly payment of 50 million of revolver borrowings of cash available on the balance sheet. In the third quarter the adjusted tax rate was 14.2%, which was up 90 basis points versus the prior-year period, while a favorable to internal expectations. Largely result in a shift in income to a more…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. And our first question comes from the line of Larry Keusch with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Larry Keusch

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open

I just wanted to -- I know you had touched on some of these aspects here, with your constant currency guidance for the year, I guess at the midpoint around 3.6%, how do you think about the 5 to 6 that was outlined in the long-range plan? And if you still believe that you are in that range, what sort of accelerate you from where we are today, because obviously you have been struggling a little bit with the top line?

Benson Smith

Chairman

I will let Liam answer that and I will give you my own color, Larry.

Liam Kelly

President

Hey Larry, It’s Liam here, we still feel pretty confident in the longer term of 5% to 6%, and what that is based on predominantly is in our Outlook for in particular the North American market. What I would like to point out is that we while our North American business units reported save 3.6% in quarter 3, we have really good visibility on tracing out direct customer sales. That would indicate that our actual sell through to hospitals, which for us is the more critical point is the uses of our product in hospitals, in North America during the third quarter was in the high 5%s from a percentage. So we do not think that the third quarter truly reflects what our business is capable of doing. And we see this is a good indicator of actual demand for Teleflex products. We have also seen a nice recovery in EMEA to achieve over 2% growth in the quarter so we have seen acceleration there. We have also seen Asia starting to recover in next year, to sort of bridge the 5% to 6% in the longer term. So broadly speaking North America would drive increased revenue growth, a modest recovery in EMEA for those singles, and getting Asia in particular up into the high single-digit category should get us there, Larry.

Benson Smith

Chairman

So I think, Larry, we started to get a lot more comfortable when we started to peel a couple layers of the onion away, and get through what was going on at the distributor level, and look what was going on at the hospital level. By way of comparison, getting back to the flu, there was essentially no flu in terms of the first quarter this year, in terms of seriously ill patients being in the hospital. Which was the case in the prior-year, and intact for the prior four years. And in spite of that, our sales through the hospital are showing really good growth. So, that is a little bit of a masquerading event that is occurring there. And once we get through that and also see the trend in new products we are a lot more comfortable after we understood that them before we started to do the analysis.

Larry Keusch

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open

Okay. That is helpful. So, two other quick ones for you, first again just coming back to the 3.6% midpoint in the range constant currency that you are now looking for in 2016 and listening to the Liam’s comments that certainly believe that 5 to 6 is doable and it sounds like perhaps in the latter portion of the LRP. Are you prepared or can you say today whether you think that 2017 sales can accelerate from that 3.6 at the midpoint of the rang. Then, the second question is just any thoughts that either Liam, Benson, or Tom may have as it relates to M&A and the outlook there?

Benson Smith

Chairman

So, we are obviously in the midst of doing are 2017 plan at this point. I think again some encouraging signs for us is largely on the fact that there was not a flu season this year so that comparable in the U.S. is going to be help all. The trend of growth in the U.S. is about a full percentage point higher on a hospital basis for year-to-date so far compared to last year, so that trend is continuing and we expect to see that continue. I think with additional stabilization in Europe that’s going to be helpful. And most of these shortcomings in the oil countries and pan Asian market will be completely out of our history and comparables. So I would certainly expect to see an improvement from 3.6%. Yes.

Liam Kelly

President

Now just to reinforce that we have seen a pickup in new products particularly in our key North American market from 1.2% in Q1 to 2.2% in Q3. So we anticipate having a more robust new product and it gets to the fact committee. We found, Larry that it is taking six to nine months to get through these fact committees. So therefore it causes a little bit of a lag between launching these products and getting the revenue recognition for them. Which we have not fully anticipate.

Benson Smith

Chairman

To the 2017 question if you could repeat that.

Larry Keusch

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open

Again it is just your thoughts on the M&A Outlook.

Benson Smith

Chairman

We continued to evaluate a lot of opportunities that our M&A group continues to be quite busy. We remain disciplined about what we are interested in looking at. And it basically has to meet that criteria in reaching our portfolio in terms of the essential necessity of the product, limited competition, and good growth opportunities in markets which we think are dependable and sustainable. So we are not concerned about our longer-range opportunity for M&A contribute to our growth.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Brooks West with Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open.

Brooks West

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open

Good morning. Liam, I missed your comments on the new product contribution, and I was wondering if you could just run through highlights again there? And I am curious as you do that if you could call out any surprises positive or negative as you start to get these new products into hospitals.

Liam Kelly

President

Our overall new product revenue quarter three was 1.3%. The comments I was making about North American new product adoption was that we saw an uptick in new product adoption in our key North American markets. Going from 1.2% in Q1, to 1.6% in Q2, to 2.2% in Q3. So Brooks my comments was that even though products have now got through the value analysis committee the signs are positive that in our key North American markets we’re beginning to see traction. And what the value analysis committees have called is a delay in the products getting through to the hospitals. And I will just give you a little bit more anecdotal of a positive outcome. Even though Percuvance itself is not going to drive significant revenue in 2016, I will start to climb through 2017. We see that we have approximately a 70% hit rate in Percuvance going through value analysis committees in getting approval. So that’s a positive sign for us on Percuvance and on value analysis committees in general. But it does cause a lag in the six to nine months, Brooke.

Brooks West

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open

And as we look at 2017 just a follow-up on the previous questions, could you weight for us the factors that might push you higher or lower? Is it new product performance, is it geographic performance? Can you give us some framework for how to think about attached to the various contributors.

Liam Kelly

President

Absolutely. We are quite bullish on our North American market which is a key market. I think as Benson said a number of times not all growth is equal. So growing in North America is a key part of our strategy. We see that in our tracings and our direct to customers that the North American market is actually growing faster than our reported numbers would indicate. And for us, Brooks, clearly the demand at the hospital level is consumption of our product and that is absolutely key to us. On a geographic standpoint we do require an uptick in our Asian market, and in particular Asian markets. So the up in Asian markets in particular, in China in particular, in India, and again more modestly within our Korean markets. And even within the quarter we saw that China grew by 8%, and India grew 9% in this current quarter on constant currency. We’re not expecting much acceleration in the EMEA but a modest acceleration in order to get to accelerated growth in 2017.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Kristen Stewart with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Kristen Stewart

Analyst · Kristen Stewart with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

I’m wondering if you could walk through I guess the reduced revenue expectations, but the maintaining of operating margins. Is it just you are being more selective on your products that you are selling or looking to focus more on the mix of the stage? And then secondarily as we look out over the next couple of years, with the push out of some of the savings from the 2014 plan, are there any opportunities for you to perhaps pull in savings from other plans or initiate other restructuring activities? Thanks.

Benson Smith

Chairman

I will have Tom start with the latter half of your question and I will jump in for the first half.

Thomas Powell

Management

Okay, so the first question was related to maintaining operating margins. So let me touch on that. As we think about the year-end guidance that we have provided, certainly we have got to call down to revenue. What we are seeing is a little more favorable FX than what we previously expected. So our reported revenue reduction is not as significant as the constant currency. But it is a reduction and that has impacted our gross margin modestly. What we have been able to do to hold operating margin is that we have some discretionary spending that we scaled back, and we have also really tightened down on all costs in the SG&A line. So we have been able to offset that modest reduction in gross margin as we get the operating margin. So, effectively what we are able to do is hold that margin at the same level despite the reduction in revenue. Now from an operating profit standpoint we are down a little bit due to the revenue call down, and we were able to offset that due to favorable tax rate and some favorability in our expectations for interest rate.

Benson Smith

Chairman

Just looking at mix, that had a lot to do with it Kristen, if you look at our 2.7% as reported gross and number, almost, a little over a third of that all comes from Vidacare where it’s growing at 20% and in of itself contributes 100 basis point of growth at 85% margins that is really, really helpful in terms of being able to mitigate loss of revenue in Latin America, for example, which is a much, much slower gross margin product. It gets back to really, I think reinforcing the quality of the revenue growth.

Liam Kelly

President

You asked about our 2014 restructuring Kristen I just want to touch on that. So as we detailed the restructuring plan has been recast, as you say, from $28 million to $35 million to a new range of $23 million to $27 million. Now we do have an offset because the decision was to move to [indiscernible]. In doing that it does address some health care provider safety. And this added safety will allow us to take a modest price increase which will get the combined savings range to $28 million to $33 million. So we are pretty close to the original range. I think that we will continue to work and continue to update the investment community on mitigations, and we continue to look to improve that timeline. But, the information that we have in front of us at the moment is as accurate as we can provide to you today. Notwithstanding that we are in discussions with our operations people, and we are in discussions with outside vendors to assist us to improve the timeline and we will update you as that becomes available.

Thomas Powell

Management

I think there is also a question about whether we are able to perform in other plans to help offset. As we outlined the original guidance for gross margin expansion in 2018, part of it being a footprint consolidation project we are speaking about. We also mentioned that there were number of initiatives that were not included in that margin expansion. We didn’t include the benefits from M&A, we didn’t include any margin benefits from distributor conversions, or subsequent separate programs. As you are aware, since announcing the gross margin target we came out with a second initiative on footprint consolidation so that can be used as a potential late offset. In addition, today we’re talking about another restructuring program that’s going to benefit both in the SG&A line and in cost of goods. So essentially your question is we continue to look for new ways to drive costs down the system, and we feel very confident in our ability to get to that gross margin and operating margin target in 2018 as a result of the activities we’ve got going on.

Benson Smith

Chairman

And I would add to that when we initially introduced it, we said there was a good degree of conservatism in these numbers and I think that we still would will describe that goal as conservative today.

Kristen Stewart

Analyst · Kristen Stewart with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

That’s helpful. Just to follow up for earnings, Tom what was currency as of last quarter, and what is currently now assumed in the 2016 guidance?

Thomas Powell

Management

In terms of a revenue impact are you looking for a total? Guide for the fourth quarter.

Benson Smith

Chairman

We’ve got at $109 million in the fourth quarter. As we think about the currency impact on revenue we assume it is a 1% impact on revenue, it is about neutral on the bottom-line.

Kristen Stewart

Analyst · Kristen Stewart with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open

So currency made no visible change on the EPS line?

Thomas Powell

Management

It’s a little bit more favorable than what we expected previously, possibly.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Lewis with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

David Lewis

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open

How are you, I want to focus on two issues this morning, one is cost in one is strategy. First is guys we talk in more detail on the nature of the push out, it is about three years. Is it quality driven? I am trying to understand what exactly would have driven the change. And then your confidence that you can get this back to pricing which is largely why you think the difference is going to be relatively small. Then, Tom, I am trying to quantify this for shareholders, to me it looks like that shift of sort of three years is around $17 million to $30 million of potential impact over that time period, which is about 100 to 200 basis points in margin. I’m sorry I know its specific questions, and I have a quick follow-up, but I wanted to dig deep on those three issues.

Liam Kelly

President

David Let me talk about the cost first. It is a timing issue driven predominantly by a requirements to provide a vial versus ampoule which add a few knock on affects. One impact was a tray reconfiguration transpiration as you can imagine this is a complex project. This added an incremental time like in order to get this executed and delivered. With regard to what is driving the price increase, moving from an ampoule to a vial does address some significant, clinician safety concerns. When you break and ampoule you sometimes get some healthcare accidents that occur with that. We believe that the change is a mark improvement, and allows us to put in a modest price increase into our anesthesia and vascular kits. That is a component of the offset against the timing.

Thomas Powell

Management

We have had conversations with key customers. It’s simply a matter of when their existing contracts expire or renew in terms of when we can put that into effect and it has zero to do with quality.

David Lewis

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open

Tom just in terms of quantifying this for share holders, so this pushes out three years, just taking the numbers in the press release. We are getting $17 million to $30 million a potential shift just over that time frame, obviously not in the absolute number, and that is about 100 to 200 basis point in the margin over some 2 to 3 year period of time?

Thomas Powell

Management

Let me just clarify that point, as you look at it, previously we expected to be substantially complete with the program by 2018. And so as you know our expected savings were between 28 million and 35 million. Now, by 2018 we expect to be about two-thirds of the way complete, so it’s more, it gets 2018 the way that we should be thinking about it is a 50 basis point reduction in our 2018 margin not 120 basis points. Effectively were at 16 million by the end of this year. We will deliver more savings by the time we get to 2018, and the way that you should think about it is about a 50 basis point reduction as a result of this push out.

Benson Smith

Chairman

I would say, David, also that we have a constant stream of opportunities that we are evaluating that has a positive impact on our margins. I think that it would be -- I’m not sure the right approach would be to simply do the arithmetic and say they are overall more [indiscernible] goals will be reduced.

David Lewis

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open

That is very helpful. Thank you for the clarification. I guess the second thing is that you spent a lot of time in your prepared remarks talking about the strategy for Teleflex, and what I took away from your commentary was you are not comfortable with your reliance on ex-U.S. products. It sounded like to me you would like a business that is more U.S. centric, and you may have to reinvest at a higher rate to sort of drive some of that acceleration. Am I hearing you right, in sort of that preamble, and I’m wondering as it relates to the M&A discussions if you want to shift your business to a U.S. focus in light of your current organic growth rate and some of the margin things we talked about in this call. Is this actually the right time to pursue more significant M&A? Some commentary on strategic question so the investors are clear on what you are trying to impart. Thank you.

Thomas Powell

Management

I do think that the location of acquired revenue is more important to us and having good growth potential in the U.S., rather than having exhausted their growth in the U.S. and having to depend on foreign growth as a way to sustain their growth rate, is figuring more into our calculation about what makes a good investment for us. You are correct that over time we want to become more centered around the U.S. for the reasons that we described in our strategy. And again going back to 2015, looking at a $0.87 headwind, and as a result of currency fluctuations just in Europe, was a point that we realized we do not want to be in that or have that same degree of vulnerability as we look down the road. So it is part of our strategy in trying to be more U.S. centric, and that is going to make us look a lot more like other U.S. medical device companies as well.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Richard Newitter with Leerink. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Richard Newitter with Leerink. Your line is now open

Hi. This is Robbie in for Rich. Can you hear me okay?

Jake Elguicze

Management

Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Richard Newitter with Leerink. Your line is now open

Thank you for taking the questions. Just maybe a follow-up on the U.S. strategy. Given the distributer commentary that you made where your sell through is relatively higher than your sell in and the focus on the U.S. business, is that suggesting there is an opportunity in M&A for more distributor acquisitions in this area? Should we think about the M&A strategy as it progresses this will be a focus? Then I have a couple of follow-ups.

Liam Kelly

President

So Robby, when we talk about distributor delaying we are really talking about a different kind of distributor. We’re talking about distributors overseas that distribute our products. So they buy products from Teleflex, they have a sales organization, and they sell that through to the end market. The distributors in North America, distribution help for more of a better way of putting it they’re the [indiscernible] of this world, that would not be part of our strategy to go into the distribution and of the business in North America.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Richard Newitter with Leerink. Your line is now open

Okay, then maybe put another way, is there other elements in your control in that area where you can sort of maximize the sell in to sort of better match the sell through?

Thomas Powell

Management

Probably not. I would say that now that we sort of understand this phenomenon, and are quite comfortable that it is not driven by losing share are losing count at a hospital level, I think we will do a better job of understanding the impact a little earlier. Bear in mind that essentially the flu season, except for this year, has been relatively normalized going back the last three years before. So this is the first year it’s really had much of an impact in the fact that the flu didn’t show up. So dealers went into the year with inventory in certain items prepared for the flu season and then that inventory has to be bled out. Now we have to understand and have a full appreciation of it we are feeling more comfortable about it. It does not affect every product and it does not affect every company the same way. We only have a few products that are really affected. It happens to be some anesthesia products and vascular access products. But now that we understand we are less alarmed. Eventually, dealer inventories catch up with hospital demand. So we do not see this as a long-term strategic issue.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Richard Newitter with Leerink. Your line is now open

Got it. And maybe one more follow-up, on the new products in Vidacare, number one can you give us an update on how that shoulder access project is progressing, and what your expectations still are for Vidacare revenues for the year? And then secondly the value access committee commentary that you put out, you expect a little bit more impact I guess later you have noted around Percuvance into 2017 and more in 2018, do these longer discussions for value access committees affect the timing of any of that revenue or that is kind of baked into your assumptions still?

Liam Kelly

President

I will deal with Vidacare product, the first sold, in our prepared remarks Vidacare in the quarter grew by 20% in line with our expectations. We see our full-year growth to be in that 20% range. As you know this is a very high margin project and one that drives a lot of value in our mix for Teleflex and it is part of the reason that even with a softer sales line that we do not have the operating incoming impact that one would expect from that. Dealing with new products and the value analysis committee, yes, it has reformed our thinking as to the timing of new products, once we launch them and they enter into our sales force. We now see a lag, as I said in my prepared remarks, of about six to nine months before the product comes through. I do want to quantify that though with our hit rate and I used the example of Percuvance as a product that we’re working through value analysis committees at the moment. Our hit rate on Percuvance is in the 80% of value analysis committee that we present to that we get approval., So it is a 70% approval weight to the value analysis committee. So we are quite confident that once we get to the value analysis committee we get through, but it does take a six to nine months for that to happen. So we have revised our thinking on our new product revenue to stage it a little bit, the acceleration of growth in new products to stage it a little bit later with that 6 to 9 month window there.

Thomas Powell

Management

Over time we will just have more data to present the them. Right now we have no real actual hospital experience to show them how these cost improvements work. As we collect more and more of that information the package we are able to present to these value analysis committee’s increases, and there are other hospitals that we can point them to that have actual asked variance with it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Anthony Petrone with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

I have a couple of questions on general procedural volumes and I will follow up with one’s specifically on PICC asked. Maybe Liam or Benson, can you comment just high level that what you are seeing in procedure volume, and really it gets to the mixed reads that we’re getting from hospitals in the Q2, Q3 time frame, even last night Community Health reported, AGA is out there today looks like AGA is a little bit better and Community Health is worse. What do you see there in procedure volumes? And then a follow-up to that would be just as you look forward to healthcare exchange enrollments. If that does shift, if premiums go up, deductibles go higher, how do you think that impact volumes in 2017?

Thomas Powell

Management

So our best take on this right now is that there is a continued increase in the acuity level of patients at the hospital. So, we’re not seeing a slowdown in U.S. hospitals relative to our product portfolio. In terms of the impact of the Affordable Care Act, our take on this is that the population that is in the Affordable Care Act already were [indiscernible] cases with high deductibles that were preventing them or delaying them from going to see a doctor et cetera. And we are kind of through that point were really sick patients have go any way. So we think it is going to have an impact, a potential impact on providers potentially, we do not see an impact on our own product line. And, again, we are seeing good growth across our product lines in terms of U.S. vascular utilizations through the year and has been increasing every quarter.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

That’s helpful. And then maybe to shift to PICCs, your competitor reported a couple days ago they spoke of gains in the category there, through some new products and acquisitions. And I am just wondering if you are seeing any impact in your business specifically within PICCs? And your competitor also speaks about an OUS opportunity in PICCs specifically in emerging markets. Is there sort of a push from Teleflex to also move PICCs into emerging markets? Thanks.

Liam Kelly

President

Okay. I’ll take that one. So our PICC growth, as I said in my prepared remarks in North America was double-digit. So over 10% growth in North American markets. Which is the largest PICC market in the world. We are in the process of registering our PICC product globally. We do not have a pressure injectable PICC with coding technology registered in the Chinese market. Our competitor may be growing overseas, but for sure our share gains in North America demonstrates was that double-digit growth in our PICC market. And that is the largest PICC market. So we are very comfortable with the growth and share gains we are taking in the key North American market.

Anthony Petrone

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is now open

That is helpful, and then just timing on entering China with your PICCs. Thank you.

Liam Kelly

President

We have a filing submitted.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Matt Mishan with KeyBanc. Your line is now open.

Matt Mishan

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is now open

When I heard your comments about focusing on the U.S. and growing there, and maybe reducing your exposure to emerging markets and into Europe, the first thing that struck my mind was that our divestiture back on the table? And in particular I think the cardiac business you have called out before as being potentially non-core, can you size that business for us right now? What percentage of that is OUS and Europe versus U.S.? And where are the margins in that business versus company average?

Thomas Powell

Management

So the margins are about at current target levels. The business is around $80 million as a global business. It is growing at a rate that we are quite satisfied with, and there is only one other competitor in that market space. So, I think that it has been on a healthy trend for the last year and that has increased our interest in not just maintaining the business but in growing the business and we’re seeing good growth out of it.

Liam Kelly

President

I would just add on the cardiac business, we have a reasonably robust new product pipeline coming through that we believe is going to accelerate the growth within cardiac. It is creative to our overall growth on the top line, but you are right, Matt, more of the business overseas than in North America. But notwithstanding that, it is as Benson said a duopoly. There is one other player in that market space. So it is still quite attractive to us.

Matt Mishan

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is now open

And then, just a little more color on the changes on the impact of the restructuring actions. I think you previously were calculating the 28 million to 35 million conservatively, and you did it on static volumes. Am I thinking about that right? And have you updated the numbers based upon your current volumes today, or the expected volumes? And maybe the magnitude of the change is a little bit greater?

Liam Kelly

President

I would say that we have made no changes to the way that we calculate savings on the restructuring. We have been consistent in the way that we calculate that.

Thomas Powell

Management

We want to present the ranges exactly the same way they were calculated initially. But if your point is how volumes been going up associated with those product lines the answer is yes. So there is some conservatism in that as a result.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Weinstein with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Brian Weinstein

Analyst · William Blair. Your line is now open

I just wanted to go back to the flu commentary a little bit, we heard the same thing last night out of Quidel given the surrounding D distribution situation there. But how do you guys specifically quantify flu, what specific products, you mentioned anesthesia and vascular aspects, have you specifically quantify you impact of flu? What is your general dollar amount that you are exposed to there? And then also on that topic, if we didn’t see seriously ill patients in the hospital in 1Q as a result of the flu season, why was this something that was kind of not already previously contemplated that this might be an area where you could potentially see a shortfall?

Liam Kelly

President

The product categories that are impacted by the flu season are in our vascular portfolio. Our central venous catheters are impacted. Within our anesthesia portfolio you have laryngeal mass, and to tracheal tubes and those. And in our respiratory portfolio the humidification part of that portfolio, those are the three. For example Brian our surgical portfolio has zero impact on a strong or weak flu season, and similar to our cardiac portfolio. How do we measure the impact? We look at trends as to what happens in prior years. So, last quarter 3, a lot of the distributors bought in quarter three in anticipation of the flu season. And that simply did not happen in this quarter. We saw a pickup last year in North America in quarter 4, and it normally comes in late November into December in quarter 4. We anticipate at the top end of our range that same phenomenon. We have spoken to our large distributors, they told us to expect the exact same phenomenon. They purchase on the basis of a normalized flu season. If the flu season is more aggressive and the vaccine does not work as well we have seen a positive. As last year’s flu season was anemic we see a slight negative.

Benson Smith

Chairman

I think your question is a good one and part of the answer is that, since I have been here, flu seasons have been pretty much similar from year-to-year. And in many cases I would have not anticipated, for example, personally I would’ve not anticipated CDC catheters were a big product use during the flu. It only affects two product lines and only a few of those really severe patients. So this experience this year having basically no fleas reason, it took us a while to catch on to it. But now I think we have a pretty clear line of sight around it.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Matt Taylor with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Matt Taylor

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open

So I want to circle back to some of the commentary that you made about revenue progression given the softness of the quarter. You talk about perhaps getting some acceleration in different geographies going forward. But recently you also talked about lack of visibility in some of those areas. I guess, can you just give us some level of confidence on the specific plans that you have internationally? Specifically where have seen weakness to kind of draw out better growth rate and achieve the mid-single-digit growth rate that you have been aspiring to more consistently?

Benson Smith

Chairman

Let me address the visibility question and I will turn it over to Liam. My commentary about visibility is the unpredictable nature now of the flu season, and not a lot of visibility in terms of exactly when viewers are going to put stock up for it. and it’s not a matter of asking the distributor what you are going to do these are decisions made at local distribution units not nationally. There are 40 different partner locations that will make decision on what inventory they will pull in. Aside from that we have excellent visibility. Asia for example, we pretty much have all orders in-house that we are going to ship out the fourth quarter, and Liam can go over a little more about the trends there.

Liam Kelly

President

First I will talk about this first quarter Matt and I will give you a bit of the longer term. So first of all in the fourth quarter we went have one extra billing day. And Benson was alluding to a good line of sight in two parts of our business that contributed to that acceleration, AIPAC and OEM. At this stage for a distributor model in AIPAC we would have all of the orders booked, as Benson was saying. We have seen a nice uptick in EMEA through Q1, Q2, and Q3. And we expect that to continue into Q4. And then longer-term, we had a few one-time events in Asia, that we have anniversaries, some product registration issues, and in particular in China, around the double [indiscernible] tubes and unique laryngeal mask that are now back in the market. So that would help accelerate those markets. And our growth in China, even in the quarter was 8%. India is another market with personal growth of 9% in the quarter. We are quite selective in the markets that we want to grow in Asia, but we see those driving, Asia, beyond the performance that we have seen the year-to-date. We see EMEA and low-single-digits, Japan and Australia in that same bracket. But, we also are quite encouraged by the tracings and end customer demand that we see in North America. And we see that predominantly driving a lot of our sales growth in the future.

Matt Taylor

Analyst · Barclays. Your line is now open

And then just one follow-up, you are into some new relatively good product cycles. You’ve got Vidacare, the protector, and now Percuvance. Can you speak in broad strokes about whether you expected new product growth of next year in 2018 to be more or less for the same that we saw here in ‘16?

Liam Kelly

President

We have not given our 2017 guidance. But given the number of new products that we have coming through our portfolio, and now that we have a better handle on what happens in the value committee, we would expect a pick up new product revenues in the years to come for sure. And we will address that when we give our 2017 guidance.

Benson Smith

Chairman

But Vidacare is an example, is not a product that would be included in our new product numbers. Even though it is relatively new to us so that number is outside of our new product estimate.

Operator

Operator

That is all of the time that we have for questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Jake Elguicze for closing remarks.

Jake Elguicze

Management

Thanks operator and thanks everyone for joining us today on the call. This concludes the Teleflex Inc. third-quarter 2016 earnings conference call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude today’s program you may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.