Louise Chen - Guggenheim Securities LLC
Analyst · Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My question here is on livestock. How should we think about Zoetis' ability to grow livestock sales through pricing pressures in the U.S. for cattle? And can you provide more details on the herd size, U.S. feed lot sales, and producer profitability and the puts and takes here? Thanks.
Juan Ramón Alaix - Zoetis, Inc.: Thank you, Louise. It's Juan Ramón. Well, on the question on the livestock and how we plan to grow this business in price or other volume growth, definitely, we'll continue applying the same strategy in terms of pricing that can be justified through outcome and providing the value to our customers. We continue having these prices vary constantly over the years, and we also plan to continue increasing these prices in the future. In the U.S., as we reported, livestock in this quarter grew by 1% in terms of normalized growth, so excluding the impact of SKU or currency or M&A. If we go to the sales of – in light of this growth, cattle grew by low-single digit, swine declined and poultry have double-digit growth. So, talking about the cattle and also the situation on the feed lots and all different drivers that are affecting this segment, so let me describe the factors that are impacting the cattle business in the U.S. So, one, it's more animals, which is positive. We have seen also in this quarter higher placement of animals in feed lots, another positive element. But there are other elements, which are negative and we have seen that in the quarter. So, first, the producers are losing money. Animals are entering heavier into the feed lots. And also, we have experiencing mild weather conditions in the U.S. that are driving a lower-disease incident. So, net-net, compared to one year ago, we think that the situation is less positive. But still, with this situation, we have been able to grow the business and the reason why we are growing is because of our portfolio, the ability also to increase prices and also the team, which is interacting with customers. The last comment I want to make here is that this is a business, livestock, which is affected by cycles. Cycles that have been affecting in the past, and will continue affecting in the future. Despite these cycles, the animal health industry has been very resilient and they're showing very steady growth. In the past, that's 5% to 6% and we expect also in the future despite of those cycles we will continue growing at the same rate. And definitely, we see Zoetis also growing in 2017 in livestock in line with the market.