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Revvity, Inc. (RVTY)

Q4 2010 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 4, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2010 PerkinElmer Earnings Conference Call. My name is Yvette, and I will be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Dave Francisco, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir.

David Francisco

Analyst

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and welcome to PerkinElmer Fourth Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference Call. With me on call are Rob Friel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Andy Wilson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. If you've not received a copy of our earnings press release, you may get one from the Investors section of our website at perkinelmer.com or from our toll-free investor hotline at 1-877-PKI-NYSE. Please note this call is being webcast live and will be archived on our website until February 17, 2011. Before we begin, we need to remind everyone of the Safe Harbor statements that we've outlined in our earnings press release issued earlier this afternoon and also those in our SEC filings. Any forward-looking statements made today represent our views only as of today. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements in the future, even if our estimates change. So you should not rely on any of today's forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date after today. During this call, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures we plan to use during this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available as an attachment to our earnings press release. To the extent that we use non-GAAP financial measures during this call that are not reconciled to GAAP in that attachment, we will provide reconciliations promptly. And I'm now pleased to introduce the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PerkinElmer, Rob Friel.

Robert Friel

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Thanks, Dave. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for the PerkinElmer Fourth Quarter 2010 Earnings Call. We are pleased with our performance in the fourth quarter, delivering another solid quarter of both top and bottom line growth. Organic revenue grew 9%, adjusted operating profit margins expanded 60 basis points and adjusted earnings per share grew 19%. In addition to exceeding our financial commitments we continued to make great strides on our strategic priorities. Touching briefly on our end markets, both the Human and Environmental businesses performed well in the quarter. In Human Health, organic revenue grew 9%, with our Diagnostic businesses growing mid-teens, led by medical imaging and maternal and newborn health. In the research market, we grew mid-single-digits, led by the academic market and strong growth in our cellular imaging offerings. In Environmental Health, we experienced 10% organic growth, driven by strong demand related to new and more stringent regulations for environmental and food safety. Andy will provide additional color around our end markets and our financial results in more detail later on this call. I will focus my remarks on the continued progress we made this quarter on two of our strategic priorities, increasing the growth profile of the company and expanding our operating margins. In the fourth quarter, we significantly improved our top line through continued expansion in emerging territories, leveraging our capabilities into adjacent markets, new product innovations and key customer wins. Revenues from emerging territories now exceed 25% of our total revenue and are growing overall at a mid-teens rate. Within each of the BRIC countries, we're experiencing growth greater than 20%. In addition, we had several important customer wins in these regions and we continue to invest in the infrastructure for future growth. During the quarter, we placed a number of our…

Frank Wilson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Thanks, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll now provide some additional details on our fourth quarter results. And after my prepared remarks, we'll open it up for questions. Before moving into the financial details, I'd like to clarify that whenever I talk about a particular measure being up or down, I'm referring to an increase or decrease in that measure during the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. As Rob mentioned previously, we had another solid quarter of revenue and earnings growth over the prior year period. Reported revenue and organic revenue for the company in the fourth quarter increased 10% and 9%, respectively, as compared to the same period last year. By segment, organic revenue increased by 10% in Human Health and 9% in Environmental Health. By product category, our recurring revenue, which includes our reagents, consumables and services, represented approximately 54% of total revenue in the quarter and organic revenue grew at a high single-digit rate. Instruments and components represented approximately 46% of total revenue in the fourth quarter and organic revenue grew at a low double-digit rate. We experienced organic revenue growth across all major geographies, with particular strength in the Americas and Asia, while emerging markets remain strong in the quarter, ramping up a terrific performance for the year. From an end-market perspective, PerkinElmer's Human Health segment represented approximately 46% of total revenue in the quarter. Within Human Health, we serve two end markets: diagnostics, which represented 26% of total revenue; and research, which represented 20% of total revenues. Organic revenue from our Diagnostics business grew mid-teens in the fourth quarter, with strong contributions from our Screening and Medical Imaging businesses. In our Screening business, we experienced growth across all major geographies and all major product offerings. We were particularly pleased…

David Francisco

Analyst

Thanks, Andy. Operator, at this time, we'd like to open up the call to questions, please.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Isaac Ro with Goldman Sachs.

Jeff Ares

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

This is actually Jeff in for Isaac. Looking at the guidance from its single-digit organic revenue growth for 2011 and the comments you made about 25% of your business now coming from emerging markets and that's growing mid-teens, if my math is correct, it means you're implying the other 75% of the market is only growing 2% for the year?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes, well, I would say the mid-teen growth for the emerging markets was a fourth quarter number. I would say, as we look at 2011, we have that moderating a little bit at sort of 12-ish, and then the rest of the business is in the 4% range. And that's how we get to something around, call it 6%.

Jeff Ares

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And then just quick clarifying question, so the guidance of $1.56 to $1.64, that includes redeployment of all the capital from the IDS divestiture?

Frank Wilson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

It's essentially does. We basically are saying it will generate $0.07 to $0.11 on top of the base business. And so the answer is, for the most part, it is.

Jeff Ares

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Switching gears a little bit, looking at the genetic screening, what are your assumptions for patient volumes testing going into 2011? And if you've seen any improvement in trends there?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

So as Andy mentioned, we're seeing some improving trends with regard to growth in birthrates. As you recall in 2010, we were probably down 5%, at least in the U.S. from births. So we are seeing some increasing trends toward the end of last year and actually as we begin 2011. So I think we feel a little bit better about the growth prospects for the newborn screening business. With regard to the other aspects of that business, I think we continue to see good adoption of maternal testing. So I think we would sort of put that growth in the high-single to low double-digits from a maternal perspective. And I think the Via core business is probably mid-single-digits, as where it's been through most of 2010.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Quintin Lai with Robert Baird.

Matthew Notarianni

Analyst · Quintin Lai with Robert Baird

This is actually Matt in for Quintin. Real quick, one of the things that we've heard kind of throughout the season and would be nice to get an update on, given the strength of the food safety side of the businesses, is this kind of how you're thinking about the impact of this new bill in the U.S. potentially driving growth for you here?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Quintin Lai with Robert Baird

So the Food Safety Modernization Act, I think we're quite excited about the prospects of that driving increased testing. I think the issue is going to be there's probably going to be a one to a year and half lag before you see a significant, I would say, purchases relative to that. Now I think the good news about it is it's raised the awareness, and so it's increased, sort of shined a brighter spotlight on the issue. But I think with regard to actual increased shipment of products in our case, it's probably a little bit delayed. But it's having an impact globally as well. You may know that China government recently issued some recent food regulations around infant milk. And that's driving growth as well. We actually won some fairly big tender there to provide some analytical instruments around that. So I think in the short-term, it's raising the visibility, and I think like I said, probably in 2012, it will start to have an impact on actually people purchasing our products to do more testing.

Matthew Notarianni

Analyst · Quintin Lai with Robert Baird

And then I might have missed it, but Europe, how did that do in the quarter? And does that kind of dovetail with pharma not being quite as strong as the rest of the business? Any color there would be great.

Robert Friel

Analyst · Quintin Lai with Robert Baird

Europe was a little lighter than the other regions of the world. We saw U.S. and Asia grow double-digits. And Europe was in sort of the mid- to low single-digits. I think some of that, quite frankly, was some weather issues, particularly around December. And probably some timing of orders, but I think clearly, we're seeing a European economy not as strong as we're seeing in Asia, and quite frankly, in the U.S. as well. Some of that is pharma as you pointed out, but I think it's even a little bit broader based in some of the other markets as well.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Derik De Bruin with UBS.

Rafael Tejada

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

This is Rafael in for Derik. Just a couple more questions on guidance. I was wondering if you could give us a little more detail on your assumptions behind your organic growth for the different end markets and also for consumables and instruments.

Robert Friel

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

So let me go through the market. I think if you step back from 2011 overall, we're seeing fairly consistent, or we're forecasting fairly consistent growth across the portfolio. I think that's one of the nice things about the portfolio now, it's fairly balanced. And I think we see good growth opportunities really in all our businesses and end markets. But I would say, when you think about the Environmental side, both the service and applied markets are probably mid-single-digits, so probably in the 5% to 7% range. I think when you go over on the Human Health side, we would have the diagnostic markets a little higher, probably more in the high single-digits. And in the research business is probably more in the low single, probably 3% to 5%. Some of that is, the issues you've heard recently about the pharma spending being somewhat offset by growth in academia. But I think also it speaks a little bit to where our portfolio is positioned with high-throughput screening and a radiochemicals. And as Andy mentioned, we're working hard to improve that portfolio in places like pre-clinical and the cellular imaging area. But I still think the research area for us is going to be probably in the 3% to 5% range. So at the end of the day, Human Health and Environmental Health, we predict will be very similar with diagnostics sort of increasing the research growth and the applied markets in the service being in the 5% to 7% range.

Rafael Tejada

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

And I guess, just one follow-up on the pharma side, I think in the past, you've spoken about trying to, I guess, grow out your academic, I guess, have a greater exposure from the academic markets. I think right now you were saying you have a 50-50 split.

Robert Friel

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

We're actually making a little bit of progress there. I would say for the quarter, academia was actually a little higher. And a couple of products we just launched recently are specifically targeted to the academic market. And we're seeing good traction there. The EnSpire was one that Andy pointed out and a couple of others that we're seeing good traction. So we're fairly optimistic that as you look to 2011, you'll see increasingly higher proportion of our revenue coming from the academic end markets.

Rafael Tejada

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

Earlier this year, you launched that next-generation sequencing and analysis service. I was just wondering if you've had any early discussions with customers. And I guess, I just wanted to get your thoughts on how you see that business unfolding in 2011 and beyond?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Derik De Bruin with UBS

Yes, well, we actually have some customers now and so we're generating revenue in that business. It's obviously small. And we see that business from a couple perspectives. First of all, it's very complementary with what we do in some of other areas, for example, obviously, the sample prep and liquid handling applications, and it uses some of our readers. So it uses both PerkinElmer products as well as other companies. But I think more importantly, as we think about being in Human Health, and of course, historically, we're much more focused on the protein analysis side of things. But I think it's going to be increasingly critical to have analysis capabilities around DNA or genes. And so I think it works very complementary with what we do, both in the diagnostic area and I think increasingly, on the research side as well. As our customers increasingly want to focus on, what we call, pharmacogenomics or the protein analysis and DNA biomarkers for disease research. So I think it's very complementary with what we do. We didn't want to get necessarily into the equipment side of things because it's a fairly crowded market. So we felt [indiscernible] going through the service offering.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ross Muken with Deutsche Bank.

Ross Muken

Analyst · Ross Muken with Deutsche Bank

So could we talk a little bit about kind of contribution margin in the Environmental Health business? The pull-through there has been a little less than I would have thought. I mean, I think you've talked about some investments you made. I just want to sort of understand, at least in the quarter relative to what we've seen in the other quarters, what caused the pull-through to be a little bit lower than we would've expected?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Ross Muken with Deutsche Bank

So I think, as Andy mentioned, there was really two things that drove that. One is we were in the process in the fourth quarter of moving the SCIEX production from Canada down into Shelton, Connecticut. And so for a portion of time, we actually had duplicative manufacturing capabilities to make sure that, that went smoothly. That obviously drove up some of the cost. The other thing was we're seeing very strong growth on the instrument side as compared to the consumables side. And of course, from the mix perspective, particularly on the gross margins side that's not as strong. So I think it was really a combination of those two things. But of course, the nice thing about getting the instruments out there, that drives a lot of our service revenue down the road. So we think that bodes well for good service growth in the future.

Ross Muken

Analyst · Ross Muken with Deutsche Bank

Rob, you talked about sort of the intent to do some M&A, and you certainly made it known that you'd like to be active. I mean, in terms of the types of assets you're looking at in the pipeline, I think we have reasonable understanding of the strategic side, where you'd like to add the financial profile of these assets broadly. What are the sort of parameters you look at? And when thinking about it, how do size up the potential to do something that's maybe less accretive in the near-term but maybe strategically sound longer-term?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Ross Muken with Deutsche Bank

I think, historically, Ross, we've focused on a couple of things, as you said, from a strategic perspective, which was really sort of building out the most attractive end markets with the real bias toward recurring revenue. So whether it's service, reagents, consumables, software from that perspective. Financially, I don't think you should expect where we do something significantly dilutive. I think if you look at historically, we've done some minor dilutions in a short period of time. But generally, beyond 12 months, it becomes accretive. So we're not looking to do something that would be significantly dilutive. I think the financial metrics we're looking at is obviously return on cash and return on invested capital. So we're looking at sort of IRI or return on invested capital, and trying to obviously be smart with the capital deployment.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Knight with CLSA. Paul Knight - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. Could you run through your share repurchase for me, Rob, or what your plan is? Or what you're willing to do here in '11?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Paul Knight with CLSA

In the fourth quarter, we purchased, as we mentioned, 3 million shares which leaves 10 million shares in our buyback authorization that's currently in place. And so we factored in that capability to buy back those shares along with some acquisition opportunities that we had to come up with the $0.07 to $0.11 of incremental to the base business. I think we don't have a formalized program in place. We're buying in the open market, and I think at least at this stage, that's the plan. We want to give ourselves flexibility because there are some other opportunities out there as well. Paul Knight - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. And the announcement regarding your genetic sequencing service business, can you run through the rationale on that, that new business?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Paul Knight with CLSA

Yes, so I mentioned a little bit previously, it's fundamentally two things. One is it's complementary to what we do in some of our businesses from the perspective of some of the front-end, we're using organic liquid handling, we're using some of our readers in that service. We also have some expertise around the software side. So that's one aspect of it. I think probably more importantly, strategically, we realized to be sort of increasingly relevant to our customers, particularly on the Human Health side. It's important for us have not only capability in protein analysis, but we also have capability in DNA biomarker analysis, so we're really trying to increase our capabilities in that area to be sort of helpful to our customers. Paul Knight - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. When do you think that's a meaningful revenue contributor, Rob?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Paul Knight with CLSA

I think it will ramp up pretty nicely in 2011, but it probably won't be significant until probably 2012, 2013, I think in that timeframe.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jon Groberg with Macquarie.

Dane Leone

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

This is actually Dane in for Jon. I just have a few quick questions here. Just on the operating margin expansion expectations for 2011, is this more volume-driven? Or is there a kind of rationalization program that's driving that?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

I think it's a combination of the initiatives we've been talking about over the last four quarters, as well as obviously, some leverage from the mid-single-digit volume. I would say, if you had to handicap it to, it's probably slightly more from the initiatives that we have in place. Our plan would be to try to drive higher than the 75 to 100, and then use that to reinvest in growth initiatives, but I think if you were to split the two, it's just around 50-50 volume leverage, and maybe slightly more on the initiatives.

Dane Leone

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

And for 2011 growth, should we be thinking of any wildcard, potentially late-cycle businesses that could kick-in maybe on the industrial side?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

No, I don't think so. I mean, I think we're expecting industrial growth in sort of the mid-single-digits, it's sort of what we've experienced here clearly in the fourth quarter. So I think it'll be solid growth, but we're not expecting any significant rebound in any of our end markets.

Dane Leone

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

And just out of curiosity for the first quarter here, the month of January was particularly brutal weather-wise. Are you factoring any type of impact on the weather in your first quarter assumptions?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Jon Groberg with Macquarie

No, because I think it's early enough in the quarter that to the extent that shipments were delayed, and we should be able to catch up during the quarter. So I would say this point, I wouldn't anticipate any issues with the weather.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jon Wood with Jefferies.

S. Brandon Couillard

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

This is Brandon Couillard in for Jon. Andy, can you give us a view in cash flow and CapEx expectations for next year? And what opportunities exist to rationalize excess working capital? And how should we think about those metrics trending in '11?

Frank Wilson

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

I think a couple of questions here, but I think on the first on CapEx, we're looking at CapEx at around $40 million. It typically runs around 2% of sales, maybe a little slightly less. We typically spend slightly under our expectations, so I think that's probably a pretty good number. As far as working capital, we initiated working capital targets in 2010. We started to make some progress, some systemic progress around really driving out inventory and accelerating our receivables. I think as we exited the year, we had little bit of an inventory build related to some new products, and we had a pretty big push of revenue in the fourth quarter, which impacted receivables. But I think it puts us in a position where we definitely feel strongly about our ability to bring down days, both inventory days and receivable days. It is a part of the compensation structure of the management, and it's something that Rob and I review on a monthly basis. And I think we are shooting for, I would say, a half a turn working capital as a goal. And hopefully, we can do better than that.

S. Brandon Couillard

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

And what are you assuming for M&A revenue contribution? And have you run the numbers based on the most recent FX rates? And then just to be clear, Andy, the $0.07 to $0.11 of EPS contribution from capital deployment, factors contribution from the M&A deal that have not been completed yet?

Frank Wilson

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

There is an assumption in there that it's kind of a bit of a hybrid of share repurchase and acquisition contribution. I think we feel pretty comfortable at this point that it will be a combination of the two. We're not at this point prepared to say it's going to be more of one than the other because the wildcard is our ability to consummate the acquisitions. And what was the first part of the question?

S. Brandon Couillard

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

The impact of acquisitions. Is this an acquisition that's actually completed?

Frank Wilson

Analyst · Jon Wood with Jefferies

The acquisition is already completed because it's fairly small. But as far as impact of acquisitions, that we have not consummated, we have nothing at the top line in the forecast.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Peter Lawson with Mizuho.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

I'm just wondering if you could think through the news from Pfizer about the cut in R&D and how that's kind of built into the model? And how you are insulated potentially from these steep cuts in R&D from pharma?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

Well, as you know, Peter, this has been going on for a number of years now. So I don't think this has much of a dramatic impact on our thinking for 2011. I would say we assumed in 2011, a pretty soft pharma R&D growth with regard to the impact on our businesses anyway. And as I mentioned before, I mean, our approach has been, probably for the last year or two, to focus more and more on the academic market. And so I think we've been fairly conservative on our assumptions relative to pharma R&D growth. And I don't really see this having a dramatic impact on the forecast that we currently have.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

And then you touched on Europe or academia. I mean, what's your outlook on the academic NIH spend?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

I mean, my sense is NIH has been fairly insulated from the budget pressures. And so our expectations, it'll continue to be funded fairly well, maybe not significant growth but I think it'll be sort of low single-digit growth in NIH funding. And not only are we -- feel good about the academic growth in the U.S. but I think also outside the U.S., particularly when you go in the emerging areas, I think there's some real good significant growth opportunity there.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

So we should think about it more as that kind of emerging market growth...

Robert Friel

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

And developed. Yes, I think the emerging markets growth will clearly be greater than the developed market growth.

Peter Lawson

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

And then operating margins in the next couple of years, is there any reason why you couldn't get to that kind of 16%, 17% operating margin level?

Robert Friel

Analyst · Peter Lawson with Mizuho

No, I mean, I think we feel fairly confident that when we look at the opportunities within the businesses, both from a cost standpoint, as well as the growth opportunities, that there isn't any reason why we shouldn't be able to get to those types of numbers. I think we've set a target of sort of close to 18% by 2014. And based on the progress we made in 2010 and looking at the plans in 2011, I think we feel good about getting there.

Operator

Operator

With no further questions in the queue, I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Rob Friel for closing remarks.

Robert Friel

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Well, thank you all for your questions. So I feel great about the shape of the company as we enter 2010. We serve growing markets with leading market positions. We are stronger financially than we've been in many years, and we have talented, innovative people who are passionate about advancing the mission of the company, which is to improve Human and Environmental Health. I look forward to discussing our first quarter performance and how we're advancing against our strategic priorities during our next earnings call. Thank you again for your participation in today's call and continued interest in PerkinElmer. This call is now adjourned.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.