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Teleflex Incorporated (TFX)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 29, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2015 Teleflex Incorporated Earnings Conference Call. My name is Mark, and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Jake Elguicze, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed, sir. Jake Elguicze - Treasurer & Vice President-Investor Relations: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Teleflex Incorporated Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. The press release and slides to accompany this call are available on our website, at www.teleflex.com. As a reminder, this call will be available on our website, and a replay will be available by dialing 888-286-8010, or for international calls, 617-801-6888; passcode 53575576. Participating on today's call are Benson Smith, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Liam Kelly, Executive Vice 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'll open up the call to Q&A. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that some of the matters discussed in this conference call will contain forward-looking statements regarding future events as outlined in the 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 could cause actual results or events to differ materially include, but are not limited to, factors made in our press release today, as well as our filing with the SEC, including our Form 10-K, which can…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Larry Keusch from Raymond James. Please proceed. Lawrence S. Keusch - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Good morning, everyone. I was wondering if we could just start with the recall expenses and just trying to understand why that deviated from your initial expectations where you thought that there would be very minimal impact in the quarter. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, that's a good question. As you recall, Larry, the recalls happened at the very end of the second quarter. What we reported on in our earnings call last time was our best estimate at that time. As it turns out, the root causes for some of the recalls turned out to be harder for us to get, in the cases of our PICC product line, in particular, there was more than one problem associated with the remedy. So, you're absolutely correct that these turned out to be greater than what we thought they were going to be at the time when – during our last call. It's one of those things that you have to keep at it until you actually find the root causes of a problem and fix it. So, it took us longer. We've identified what that problem is now and I think we are in much better shape at predicting the – the fact that there's not going to be an impact in the fourth quarter. Lawrence S. Keusch - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. That's definitely helpful. And then secondly, you obviously have done a nice job of steering us to what the 4Q will look like, but at this juncture as we're kind of finishing up the month of October here, I'm wondering if you could at least…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Kristen Stewart from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Benson, I was wondering if you could just comment on just kind of the broad markets again. If I look at the businesses, a lot of the different segments did seem to improve across some – kind of in the second quarter to the third quarter with, I guess, the exceptions being the other area, which a lot of other companies have seen weakness within Latin America and then, I guess, a little softer results in EMEA. But North America clearly looked to have picked up. And then, overall, I guess, your tone seems to be pretty positive heading into the fourth quarter and it seems to be setting up for a pre-very strong, I guess, 2016. Some other companies have talked a lot about FX, seems like FX was hitting you guys pretty hard this year with pretty heavy impact on EPS. Just wanted to make sure, as you stand here today, what's the outlook for FX kind of looking into 2016? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, FX in the third quarter had a bigger impact on us than what we expected. As we move into the fourth quarter, we're now going to see comparables to the prior year, which are a lot less severe than they were for the first three quarters. So that's in the short term – in the short term, that's kind of where we see FX. I would love to be able to tell you that we have the currency situation figured out for 2016. I think – but there's a lot of volatility there. Our general assumption is that we're going to likely see continued strengthening of the U.S. dollar. We don't think it's going to be at the same level of comparison that we saw in 2015. One of the reasons, quite frankly, that we're putting more and more resources around growth in the U.S., and there really is two reasons: first of all, we think as demographics kick in, there's going to be good expansion in the U.S., but secondly, it insulates us from some of the ongoing currency fluctuations, the more as a higher percentage of our business is centered here. I think our forecast from 5% to 6% constant currency isn't going to be affected by what happens obviously with the currency.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Right. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: But we're not expecting the same level of severity that we saw in 2015, and I'll turn it over to Tom now to give you a little bit more detail. Thomas E. Powell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, sure. So to Benson's point, in 2015, we saw a pretty big move in the U.S. dollar relative to the euro, and that's the currency that we're most impacted by or that relationship. We do about 30% of our business in euros. And so as we look at the average rate for 2014, it was about $1.33 this year based on where we're currently trading, it's probably going to be around $1.11. So to think that there's going to another $0.22 move to 2016, we're hoping that's not the case, but we are looking for a likely continued strengthening of the U.S. dollar to some degree. But again, as we look at this year, we were able to put together a number of actions to offset that currency impact and still put forth pretty strong earnings growth despite what was a very significant impact to earnings as a result of currencies. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Now, I'll have Liam to comment a little bit on the end markets that you asked about. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, so, as we see North American growth, you're right, Kristen, we see it as accelerating in the, we've seen a pickup in quarter three, it was 4.34% in quarter two to 5.7% in quarter three. And obviously, that has an impact on currency growth because all of those sales are denominated in U.S. dollars. Then the overseas market, yes, we have seen a little bit of softness in particular in the oil-based countries, in particular in Venezuela, Brazil and Russia, and a little bit in the Middle East in that order. So, that's what we're seeing out there. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And that amounts to about 1% of our overall revenue, and once that's out of the mix, we should have more favorable comparisons moving into the latter half of next year. And I would say we have taken that into account in our fourth quarter estimates. We've already taken that into account with our revised guidance.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay, perfect. I'll get back into the queue. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line Matt Taylor from Barclays. Please proceed.

Matt C. Taylor - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Can you hear me okay? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah.

Matt C. Taylor - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Great. So, I was hoping you could delve into some of the OUS commentary a little bit more – a couple of things. On the prepared remarks, you mentioned that China was a little bit weaker, so I was wondering if you could talk about that? And then in terms of some of these oil-based countries, could you help characterize the weakness? Was this lack of distributor buying or utilization weakness? What kind of visibility do you have into those countries over the next two or three quarters? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: So, I'll take the oil-based country question. So – and I'll just speak specifically about Latin America first. So what we saw within the quarter, and we sell mass in U.S. dollars to these distributors within Latin America. So with the devaluation of their currency, that has obviously had an impact in their ability to purchase at a consistent rate or improved rate from last year. So, really the impact on Latin America was in the region of about 57 basis points on our overall revenue growth. And on Latin America itself, it was – it's greater than a 10% impact, largely driven by Venezuela, and it is the devaluation of the currency, but also our distributor is awaiting on payment from the government there. And we see it becoming coming back once the government pays our distributor because he has orders within the pipeline already, but he's not willing to shift towards those from others, shift them through his channel until such time as he receives payment from the government. So, we should see Venezuela, in particular, show some rebound as we move forward into 2016. With regard to your question on Asia and China, we saw a slight decline actually in China within the quarter, but we saw very strong performance in APAC overall of 11.3%. India, which has rose up there, was increased by 16%. Australia and Japan and Southeast Asia and Korea were also in the double-digit range. So, the softness in China where there was strong in central venous catheters, we saw some pressure on our less differentiated products, in particular within our Anesthesia and Respiratory segment. Jake Elguicze - Treasurer & Vice President-Investor Relations: Hey, Matt, this is Jake. One other comment I would add is that China came in pretty much right in line with our expectations for Q3 and we still do expect Q4 to be pretty robust. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: And Matt, as we get into Q4, I think Tom mentioned already, we have an easier comparable in Q4, and we expect a very strong rebound in China on core growth and as a result of that comparable. If you recall last year, we realized that some of our distributors in Asia were building up some inventory, and we took the decision at that stage to not to ship to some of those distributors.

Matt C. Taylor - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Thanks for that. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Guys, thank you. Longer range, Matt, our view is that undifferentiated products which have a local Chinese manufactured competitive entry are going to be hard to achieve the kind of growth rates in the past. And there's a – there's certainly a strong trend towards nationalization now from the current regime in China that is somewhat pushing adoption of its homegrown, homemade products. So, and our strategy has all along been to emphasize what we think are the most differentiated products. So, I don't think it's going to have an enormous impact on us, but China is a changing environment now, and we continue to monitor, I think a lot of activities there.

Matt C. Taylor - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. And just one on the margin there, so you were able to get some pricing in the quarter. I guess I'm curious about the outlook as to whether your views on your ability to get additional price that have changed. And then given the volatility that you're talking about, how does this change, if at all, your views on the attractiveness of buying additional OUS distributors and your ability to take your margin there? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So I think our – just to clarify at least what I think we were saying about pricing was, we have not counted on pricing as a key component in our stated three-year goals, but that we were going to take price every place we could find it. So, I think we're seeing – I think we're seeing our ability to do that and are pleased with our ability to do that. But given the – given other pressures in the marketplace, we're not relying on that to hit our three-year margin expansion goals. I think it's one of those areas where we've been conservative and we'll probably do better than what we've committed to, and it's certainly the case that we keep looking for price opportunities every place. I do think there are some markets that we have shied away from thinking about distributor to direct conversions. We have about $169 million that goes through the kinds of distributors that offer us a significant margin improvement. We've identified about a third of that in geographies where we think it makes sense to do that. So, I think the changing dynamics has affected our view of which geographies are more attractive to us, but I still think we're in the range of seeing, over the…

Matt C. Taylor - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. All right. Thanks a lot for your comments.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from David Lewis from Morgan Stanley. Please proceed, sir. Jonathan Demchick - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning. Hello, this is actually John Demchak in for David. Thanks for taking the questions. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Jonathan Demchick - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning. So, I think we talked a little bit about the dealer direct distribution conversion side, but other on the M&A side. It's now been a year-and-a-half, two years since the last, I guess, larger deal that you guys have done. You've made a big deal in Vascular, a big deal in Anesthesia. You haven't really done, I guess, a larger deal in Surgical. Could you maybe talk about the environment that you're seeing in the broader deal environment and if Surgical is poised for the next larger deal that you guys are looking for? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, certainly from a standpoint of smaller deals, we've been more active than we've ever been in terms of late-stage or ready-to-go product acquisitions. I will just tell you that we – our mindset is to be extremely selective about the larger deals that we're going to do. We almost always, if not always, have some level of conversations going on. This process can take time. We often have sellers that have walked the expectations, and it takes a little bit of reality sometimes for them to understand that they're not going to get what they expect to get. There continues to be things for us to look at. I would say overall, our M&A department is as busy now as it's ever been, and we still would characterize ourselves as a serial acquirer and are quite…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Matt Mishan from KeyBanc. Please proceed.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Hey. Good morning, everyone. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, Matt. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Hey, I know you guys have already covered this, but just to clarify, what is your exposure to the oil-producing countries, Venezuela, Brazil, Russia, Middle East as a percentage of sales? And then, what was the percent headwind into sales in the quarter? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: So, as a percent of sales, our exposure is just slightly over 1% of our total revenue goes through the countries that you mentioned. Sorry, just over 2%. 2% to 3% of our revenue goes through the countries that you mentioned. So, it's not a significant driver of our overall global revenue.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And what was the headwind in the quarter on a percentage basis, like on to sales from those countries? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: From those countries, it was approximately for – for Latin America, it was 57 basis points, and for Russia and Middle East, it was probably about another 5 basis points.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. And then on Vidacare, I think you said last quarter that you thought this would – that it would be in the plus 20% range in the back half of this year. Where did that come in? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: So, the Vidacare is tracking at the moment in the region – in the high teens at the moment on a year-on-year basis, driven by good performance on EZ-IO and stellar performance in OnControl. So in the quarter itself, it came in at 14% and is tracking year-to-date in the high teens.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Is that coming in a little bit.... Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And we expect to finish it in the high teens. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, we expect a very strong finishing quarter four, as we do in most quarter four for this type of a product where municipalities tend to replenish their stocks at the end of the quarter.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. Perfect. And the last question, I think last call you talked about expanded use by surgeons of Percuvance in different kind of surgeries. Have you also updated your thoughts on potential market size? I think you initially thought it was maybe $300 million to $400 million, is it maybe a little bit more than that now? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, the overall market for this type of surgery in its totality is significant as you're aware, Matt. And we've taken a percentage of the overall laparoscopic markets that gets us to that 300, 400. I can tell you that with Percuvance, we have now completed 198 cases, we're active and seven sites in the U.S., eight outside of the U.S. We have 300 surgeons signed up for a training program that is taking place in November. We had an internal training that Benson mentioned in his prepared remarks that took place yesterday from a key teaching hospital, that was very exciting. At this stage, we're not going to update how big we think the market is. We still think it's a $300 million to $400 million opportunity. As we get into the actual product launch, Matt, we may update then, but the overall size of this market is in the billions, as you know. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: One of the really interesting things that came out of this presentation yesterday was that – one of the ideas behind single site incisions and Percuvance was the reduced scarring to patients. And some of the physicians we are commenting with replacing a lot of emphasis on the flexibility of using the instrumentation versus just the cosmetic effect, and that seemed perfectly reasonable to us. Now, as they're treating more and more patients, the patients themselves are responding really, really favorable to the cosmetic results, and we're starting to see a change in thinking about the value that that brings to the procedure. So, everything we've learned since the last – since the last conversation we've had with you about this read us to be more bullish about the acceptance of the product.

Matt Mishan - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jason Wittes from Brean Capital. Please proceed.

Jason H. Wittes - Brean Capital LLC

Management

Hi, thanks. Just a quick follow-up on Percuvance. Are you guys saying that you think the aesthetics of Percuvance are going to be a big driver or how should we be thinking about adoption and what will drive adoption? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, there are a number of key drivers, aesthetics for sure is one. The procedures that it's been used in are in general surgery, gynecological and neurology, and in particular in gynecological surgery, that is a key element. One of our key opinion leaders has spoken to some of these patients, and that is a key driver. The other key driver is that you don't use as many ports when you use the Percuvance. So, on one of the cases I was in, instead of using five to six ports, the surgeon used two, and that has a reduced cost. And the other key driver, and this came out really clearly in the presentation yesterday, the issue with no sills (01:00:16) a lot of these advances that they were seeing meant that the surgeon had to change the way he did the procedure. One of the key attributes of the Percuvance is there is no change in the way they do the procedure. They don't need articulating instruments. They do have to exchange extra (01:00:37). They can use the same size of heads, which is very important so that they can do the procedure in the same way as they would have done it in the past using those multiple ports. So, there are a number of drivers that makes this quite attractive to the surgeons.

Jason H. Wittes - Brean Capital LLC

Management

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate that. Also wanted to get a little more color on the Vascular business, it did better than we expected. Obviously, you mentioned Vidacare. I'm curious about PICCs and especially CVC since I know that you guys have been making efforts to sort of improve – or penetration and growth there. And related to that, in respiratory that was a little bit behind. I know that you have also been extending efforts there, maybe it's a little too early to see that in the numbers, so just a little more color would be helpful? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. So for our CVC business globally, it grew by 6.6% on a global basis. On our PICC business – now our PICC business showed a slight decline, but that, as I said during my prepared remarks, was really due to the ongoing issue with the recall. If we added back the impact of the recall, the PICC business would have grown by just into the double-digit country. So, it was impacted by the recall. With your question on respiratory, we have built into our quarter four, thinking that respiratory will continue to show a slight decline in the – for the remainder of the year and for the balance of the year in a full-year basis we are forecasting a slight decline, but we've already anticipated that in our full-year projections.

Jason H. Wittes - Brean Capital LLC

Management

Should we be thinking about recovery to positive growth territory in the next – in 2016? I mean, I'm not asking for guidance, just sort of a general direction for that. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes, our anticipation is a slight recovery. Respiratory is never going to grow in the 6% like our CVC business. But we would – we do anticipate seeing a soft recovery in our respiratory business towards – as we get into 2016. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Fairly sufficient to move it into a positive growth territory. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes.

Jason H. Wittes - Brean Capital LLC

Management

Understood. Thank you. And just maybe a quick follow-up on some other questions out there. You had a few questions about end markets. I was just curious specifically if you can reconcile your growth in North America with some of the surprising results from some of the hospitals, which actually recorded some disappointing admission results recently. I don't know if you can rectify the.... Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: That's a really good question. Our conversations with providers lead us to believe, and our own sales results confirm this, that the general admission of patients is not improving, and that's one of the reasons why a product line like respiratory therapy isn't doing better. What is happening is that the acuity level of the patients that are being admitted is higher. And so that's what's driving high numbers in surgery, it's what's driving high numbers in vascular access. And these are kind of those non-postponable, inevitable visits to the hospitals that people have to make. There was a slowdown in those in 2013 and 2014, and now we continue to see that get better on a quarter-by-quarter basis. But it's not being driven by general improvements in administration – in admissions, excuse me, you're absolutely right.

Jason H. Wittes - Brean Capital LLC

Management

That's very helpful. Thank you very much, Benson.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Petrone from Jefferies. Please proceed.

Anthony Charles Petrone - Jefferies LLC

Management

Thanks. Maybe a couple questions, one on China, one on margins. On China, Benson, in the past you mentioned lengthening cycle for registration processes for getting new products approved in end markets. So, maybe just an update on that situation and that country. Do you think that presents a headwind going forward? And then on margins, I know we've touched on this in the past in prior quarters. But when you look through 2017, how do you think the margin benefits from footprint will play out? Is it more gradual or do you think you'll see a step function at some point along the way? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So addressing China, I think that there is a definite trend on the part of the Chinese government to make it – that's making it somewhat more difficult for non-Chinese manufacturers to introduce products. That's exhibited in lengthening approval times, a lot of – a lot of, I would characterize it as delays around even simple things like change of location of manufactured products, which now have to go through the whole complete re-registration. And the third area is increasing the fees considerably for non-Chinese manufacturers to get products through their version of the FDA. That's going to have differing impacts on different companies depending on what their profile and goals are in China. For us, it really means – it actually reinforces what our strategy has been to introduce products into the Chinese market that we think have good legs and will stay there, will be difficult for local Chinese manufactures to duplicate and worth the additional fees and time to get into the marketplace. If we were counting on much more broader based product offerings in China, I think we'll change our viewpoint but that's been our strategy with China all along. And excuse me, your other question was?

Anthony Charles Petrone - Jefferies LLC

Management

Just on the cadence of margins, how that plays out through 2017? Is it a step function or do you expect a gradual benefit from footprint reduction in the margin profile? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: When we look at the margins of the next couple of years, there is kind of two pieces to that, one is, you refer to the footprint. And on that, specifically, we had talked of savings of $28 million to $35 million. We're going to realize a small portion of that in the fourth quarter of this year, the majority of it in 2016 and then the remainder in 2017. So that is fairly 2016 focused. And in addition to the footprint, we had talked about the ability to save additional moneys and drive margin through 2018, and those other projects include initiatives such as material substitution, supplier efficiency initiatives, investments and automation, lean manufacturing, et cetera, and those projects are more evenly weighted throughout the period from 2016 through 2018. So there are not a big step function, but rather a more ratable improvement each year.

Anthony Charles Petrone - Jefferies LLC

Management

That's helpful. And Benson, the last one from me is just price, generally. I guess it relates to Jason's question. You look at some of the hospital prints, but they also reported lower revenue per patient, and so reimbursement seems to be being pressured a bit here and you also have HMO consolidation. So I'm just wondering, how you see that impacting the landscape going forward? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think it's one of the reasons why we're not counting on price as a part of our margin improvement goals or revenue improvement goals. However, even in a difficult environment, and I would say, it's been a difficult environment since I arrived here in 2011. Even in a difficult environment, there are some products by the fact that there's really not a good competitive alternative. They are a small part of the hospital's budget. They don't receive a lot of attention in their purchasing office. So there are – there are select opportunities to be able to get price, and it's just in our mindset to take advantage of every one of those that we can. But given the overall environment, we don't think that it's prudent to count on that as part of our margin improvement goals.

Anthony Charles Petrone - Jefferies LLC

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Richard Newitter from Leerink Partners. Please proceed.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Management

Hi. It's actually Ravi in for Rich. Can you hear me? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: We can.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Management

Thanks. So, a little bit of a follow-up on the North American market growth. You're seeing a pretty good acceleration in the Vascular and Surgical businesses. Looking to see your outlook on those going forward, given commentary, do you still expect these to accelerate? And then maybe one on the tax rate, came in a little bit lower than we had been modeling. Trying to figure what the sort of the long-term strategy still remains around what you highlighted at the Analyst Day? And if maybe one on the fourth quarter tax rate, how much could the benefit be if the R&D credit was reinstated? Thank you. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. So I'll take the – excuse me, I'll let Liam take the U.S. revenue market question. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. So, we're looking at the U.S. at the moment. You're correct, we went from 4.3% to 5.7%. As we look to the remainder of the year, our current thinking is that we will just pull back a little bit on the 5.7%, just for some comparables in the prior year, but still a pretty robust performance. And then have an accelerated jump off into 2016. We see very strong growth within our Vascular segment and especially within our CVCs. Within the Surgical segment, as we move into the following year, we have the – obviously the MiniLap acquisition is in there, but then we launched Percuvance in late quarter one, earlier quarter two on a full market release into the surgical business units. And within Anesthesia, we have a very strong focus on the launch of the Protector, which will come in quarter two also. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer:…

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Management

Great. Thanks. And just one clarification. Liam, that North American growth number you gave, was that – that was an organic number for the year-to-date growth? Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: That's an all inclusive number for North America.

Ravi Misra - Leerink Partners LLC

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Dave Turkaly from JMP. Please proceed. Liam Kelly - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, Dave.

David L. Turkaly - JMP Securities LLC

Management

A lot of my questions have been answered. I did want to ask if I could talk to your accountants, but down with the 13% rate in the quarter, but did you – you explained it some benefit from tax return, and I think there is some repatriation component, but can you just tell us exactly why it was that low this quarter? Thomas E. Powell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, there are really two pieces to it. One was in connection with the filing of our U.S. Federal tax return, where the actual expense came in less than what we had been accruing towards as the year had progressed. And the second issue was related to an initiative to further simplify and rationalize our organizational structure, so we transferred ownership of certain subsidiaries around the Teleflex group, and a byproduct of this was that it created an increase in the foreign tax credits that would be available to offset future taxes or U.S. taxes on our non-permanently (01:14:12) reinvested earnings. Now the other benefit of that movement was our ability to repatriate cash, which we did also in the third quarter. So there's really two impacts that are driving the rate in the third quarter. And as mentioned, those rates are not something that will impact the rate in future years around a sustainable basis.

David L. Turkaly - JMP Securities LLC

Management

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Kristen Stewart from Deutsche Bank.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi. Thanks for taking my follow-up. I was hoping you could just take us back and just talk to the bigger picture M&A landscape, and just talk about what you're seeing out there in terms of smaller companies, and just they're willingness just given some of the volatility out there in landscape with healthcare, and willingness to, I guess, look towards larger companies like yourself given the consolidations that's happening to partner up (01:15:37) and just what you're seeing? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So I think the opportunities over the next several years are going to continue to be robust. One of the things we're seeing in the U.S. market by way of example is, it is getting tougher for, let's call them, $100 million revenue companies to be able to get a seat at the table at IDNs and at GPOs. And so, it's becoming more difficult for them that the increased cost to get your product, for example, through China make global expansion tougher for companies of that size. Even things like the medical device tax have a lot of those $50 million revenue companies just at the brink or below profitability. So there have been an increasing number of environmental factors in the healthcare marketplace that make it more difficult for those size companies. This year, our currency is a negative factor when we try to look at European assets, because they have one view of what their sales increases is, when they're doing their calculations in their own currency, when we have to denominate that into dollars what it's going to do us. In many cases, what looks like growth to them is actually negative to us by the time we go through the currency translation. So, that's having some short-term impact in terms of how we might see evaluation and they might see evaluation. Again, once we see a more stable environment where currencies aren't a big issue, that will start to evaporate a little bit. That's the only thing I think that's on the horizon that makes the market at least in acquiring European assets a little bit more difficult than normal.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

And I guess as we look out over the next, I guess, 12 months to 24 months, would be likely for us to see you guys do another larger transaction or just likely more tuck-ins? Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, help me understand what you see by...

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

I guess An LMA-type transaction. Benson F. Smith - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. So, in the next 12 to 24 months, I would be really surprised if you didn't see that, yes. I think we're still not in the mindset of some kind of transformational acquisition that would be in the billions of dollars. But in that, I think our range now is probably in the $300 million to $700 million where we'd consider that certainly capable financially for us to do that, and I would be very surprised if you didn't see one in that period.

Kristen M. Stewart - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

I would now like to turn it over to Jake Elguicze for closing remarks. Jake Elguicze - Treasurer & Vice President-Investor Relations: Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us on the call today. This concludes the Teleflex Incorporated Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call.