Bio Rad Laboratories Inc (BIO.B) 2013 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q4 2013 Bio-Rad Laboratories Incorporated earnings conference call. My name is Ben, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session towards the end of this conference.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder this call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Ron Hutton, Vice President and Treasurer. Please proceed, sir.

Thanks, Ben. Before we begin the call, I would like to caution everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements about management's goals, plans and expectations. Because our actual results may differ materially from these plans and expectations, I encourage you to review our filings with the SEC where we discuss in detail the risk factors in our business. The Company does not intend to update any forward-looking statements made during the call today. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Christine Tsingos, Executive Vice President and CFO.

Thanks, Ron. Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today we will review the fourth quarter and full year results for 2013 as well as provide some insight into our thinking for 2014. With me today are Norman Schwartz, John Goetz and Brad Crutchfield.

Let's start with a review of the quarterly results. We are pleased to report that net sales for the fourth quarter of FY13 were a record $602.6 million, an increase of 5% versus the year-ago period sales of $573.8 million. On a currency neutral basis, quarterly sales grew 5.7%.

During the quarter we experienced good currency neutral sales growth across many of our product lines, most notably in our Life Science Group, including continued strong sales of our Droplet Digital PCR products and $6 million of sales contributed by our new antibody business. Excluding currency and the addition of AbD Serotec, organic sales increased 4.7% compared to last year.

The consolidated gross margin for the quarter was lower than expectations at 53.6% and compared to last year's gross margin of 54.8%. The decline in margin versus last year is primarily reflective of product mix, increased amortization costs, and $2.6 million of expense associated with some manufacturing consolidation in the US and Europe.

During the quarter we recorded a total of approximately $8.3 million in cost of goods sold for the non-cash purchase accounting expense related to acquisitions. This compares to $6.9 million in the year-ago period.

SG&A expense for the fourth quarter was $214.6 million or 35.6% of sales compared to $188.9 million, or 32.9% of sales last year. The increase in spend versus last year is partially related to incremental costs associated with the acquired antibody business as well as for our ERP project. The current quarter SG&A also includes an additional $14 million accrual in connection with our ongoing efforts to resolve the previously disclosed investigation related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Amortization of intangibles related to our acquisitions recorded in SG&A in the fourth quarter was approximately $2.3 million, down slightly from a year ago period.

Research and development expense in Q4 was 9.3% of sales, or $55.8 million. The increase in spending from the third quarter is reflective of our investments in the development of new products for diagnostic markets such as diabetes monitoring and blood typing.

Interest and other for the quarter was a net expense of approximately $7.8 million compared to $8 million last year. The fourth quarter interest expense declined $6.6 million year-over-year, the result of our bond redemption last quarter. When comparing to last year, remember that we recorded a one-time gain of $4.3 million in 2012 for the sale of a building and land. The effective tax rate used in the fourth quarter was 32% and in line with our guidance.

Reported net income for the fourth quarter was $30.1 million, or $1.04 per share on a fully diluted basis compared to $43.3 million last year, or $1.51 per share. Excluding the FCPA-related accrual, we estimate that fully diluted earnings per share would have been $1.37 for the quarter.

Our Life Science Group reported record sales for the fourth quarter of $220.5 million, a growth of 8% versus last year. On a currency neutral basis, sales increased and impressive 9.4% for the quarter. These quarterly results reflect strong sales of our new digital PCR system, the QX200, as well as our newly introduced NGS chromatography and S3 cell sorter system. And as I mentioned earlier, sales of our new antibody products were $6 million for the quarter.

Excluding these acquired sales and currency effect, organic growth for Life Science Group was still a healthy 6.5% in the fourth quarter. On a geographic basis, sales grew across many regions, most notably in the emerging markets, North America and Europe. Strength in the top line combined with good expense management helped to push segment profit for the Life Science Group significantly higher to more than $15 million.

Our Clinical Diagnostic group also achieved record sales for the quarter of $377.9 million compared to $365.9 million last year, an increase of 3.3% on a reported basis and 3.6% currency neutral. These sales were led by continued strong performance in the quality controls and diabetes product lines as well as solid growth for BioPlex 2200 revenue. On a geographic view, diagnostic currency neutral sales of the quarter increased most notably in China and the emerging markets. Reported fourth quarter segment profit for diagnostics was $45 million.

Looking at the full-year results we are pleased to report annual revenues of $2.133 billion an increase of 3.1% versus last year on a reported basis. On a currency neutral basis, sales for the year grew 3.9%. Excluding the addition of AbD Serotec, the organic currency neutral sales growth for the full year was 2.7%.

Our Life Science Group posted annual sales of nearly $710 million, an increase of 3.1% versus 2012 and growth of 4.5% currency neutral, including $24 million of sales contributed by our new antibody business. This sales growth was also fueled by continued strong sales of our digital PCR product line where the install base now exceeds 500 units.

We also saw good annual growth in our process media and equipment products, as well as good growth in the emerging market. However, with the continuation of a challenging research funding environment coupled with our distributor transition in China, the annual organic sales growth for Life Science in 2013 was 1.1%.

For the year, Clinical Diagnostic sales were $1 billion -- $1.408 billion, a growth of 3.1% on a reported basis and 3.6% on a currency neutral basis. This growth was fueled by continued momentum in quality controls and diabetes monitoring products. On a geographical view, China, Asia-Pacific and the emerging markets showed excellent growth for the year.

Total Company gross margins for the full year were 55.3% which compares to 55.8% in 2012. The decrease in margin versus last year is primarily the addition of $5 million of acquisition-related amortization expense in our Life Science segment. Total amortization of intangibles and purchase accounting recorded in cost of goods sold in 2013 was $33 million. SG&A expense as a percent of sales was 37.4% for the year and higher than we estimated at the beginning of 2013, driven primarily by the $30 million FCPA accrual. Excluding the accrual, SG&A as a percent of sales was 36%.

Other drivers of the higher expenditures when compared to the prior year were the result of increased spending for our global ERP project, including amortization, as well as the addition of the Serotec business. Also, remember that last year we recorded the $16 million reduction in the QuantaLife earnout valuation, as well as the bad debt allowance reduction of more than $6 million for southern Europe. Both of these contributed to a tough compare for 2013.

SG&A expense for acquisition-related amortization was $8.8 million for the full year. Research and development expense in 2013 was $211 million, or 9.9% of sales. This increase is a direct reflection of our investment in new products for the diagnostic market including blood typing, blood virus and diabetes monitoring. Looking to 2014, R&D expenses as a percentage of sales will likely stay at that 9% to 10% level as we move a number of investments through the product development pipeline.

Net income for the full year was $77.8 million versus last year's net income of $165.5 million. As we guided at the beginning of the year, the decline in net profit relates to our investment in new IT systems, as well as the addition of AbD Serotec and the new cell sorting technology. These planned expenditures, coupled with the FCPA accrual, result in a net margin of 3.6%.

The effective tax rate for the full year 2013 was 30.8%. For 2014, we expect that the effective tax rate, excluding any discrete items that may occur, to be in the 32% to 34% range. This higher range reflects the change in accounting treatment for some of our French tax credits, which we discussed with you in the third quarter, as well as the current uncertain outcome of extending the federal R&D tax credit.

For 2013, Bio-Rad's balance sheet also remained strong. As of December 31, total cash and short-term investments were $609 million compared to $920 million at the end of last year. The decline in cash balances year-over-year is primarily the result of the third quarter bond redemption and associated cash outlay of $312 million.

Net cash generated from operations during the fourth quarter was $72.5 million and $175.5 million for the full year 2013. The year-over-year decrease in cash flow is the result of higher investments in IT and inventory as well as higher interest payments associated with the redemption of the bond. EBITDA for 2013 remains strong at more than $320 million which includes $93.5 million of EBITDA in the fourth quarter.

Net capital expenditures were $29.7 million for the quarter and $111.8 million for the full year and in line with the range we discussed on the third quarter call. The full-year spend is below the $140 million to $150 million range we estimated at the beginning of 2013 and driven by lower than expected ERP expenditures as we took the time to focus on stabilization of our first deployment before embarking on the implementation of the rest of the United States.

Looking to 2014, we estimate that CapEx spending will be in the $140 million to $150 million, range primarily reflecting the resurgence of investment in deployment two of our ERP project. And finally, depreciation and amortization for the quarter was $42 million and $147.2 million for the full year.

Looking to 2014, we see both opportunity and challenge. The momentum we are seeing in many of our life science product lines is encouraging for future growth. In addition, uncertainty in the research funding market seems to be clearing, at least a little. On the challenge side, we continue to face of declining Europe for our diagnostics group fueled by price pressure in government tenders, as well as laboratory consolidation in France, our largest European market. The net result of the opportunities and challenges leads us to the expectation of growth in 2014 similar to what we saw in 2013, that is, around 2.5% on an organic currency neutral basis for the full year.

With regard to margins, we're hoping to hold the full-year gross margin basically flat, around 55%, despite price pressure across several product lines and regions. Looking to the operating margin outlook, we view 2014 as another year of investment in IT and ERP, new product development, and growing our newly acquired businesses.

Our full-year expectation is for an operating margin around 9% which represents some improvement over 2013 on a reported basis, but clearly reflective of our investment mode. When thinking about our net margin for the full year of 2013, I mentioned earlier that the effective tax rate will likely be in the 32% to 34% range, but also remember that we have reduced our annual interest expense burden by $24 million which should bode well for a sizable increase in net income versus 2013.

Before turn the call over for questions, I want to make sure that you saw in our press release that we will be delaying the filing of our 10-K to allow adequate time for KPMG to complete their procedures. We will file as soon as practical. And now we are happy to take your questions.

Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions)

The first question comes from Dan Leonard from Leerink.

Thank you. I guess for starters, I could do the math but I'm in transit right now. Christine, what are all the components of your guidance roll up to in EPS number?

Dan as you probably know, EPS is not a number that we guide to. We haven't historically and we don't intend to. We try to give some margin help.

Got it, okay. Well then, a couple of questions on the quarter. What specifically was the mix headwind which weighed on gross margin in the quarter? Was of the digital PCR business coming in much lower margin than the balance? Is it something different?

No, I think product mix, which is typical of our fourth quarter, often times it will shift more heavily towards instruments which do carry a lower gross margin. In this case, I think most of the pressure we felt was on the diagnostic side of the business where the instrument placements in Q4 were pretty sizable. And then also the one-time expense associated with some consolidation of manufacturing sites.

Okay. And --

And the other thing, Dan, remember that last year we didn't have the med device tax too, and that's a burden, $1.5 million, $2 million a quarter for us as well.

Sure. (Technical difficulty) back out the manufacturing consolidation and take into consideration that the typically heavier instrument quarter, it still came in a good bit light versus what we were looking for, so I was wondering if they were something specifically to call out. But that's fine. On digital PCR, since you called out the install base there, which looks pretty good, what are the main applications where that product line is getting traction?

This is Brad. I'll take this. Clearly, infectious disease is an area, general pathogen detection, but really around oncology and rare event detection. What people are finding is that there a certain applications that can be done with digital PCR that could not be done before, and we're seeing a lot of traction in that area.

Thanks, and then my final question and I'll lend the floor to someone else. What's on deck from an ERP implementation standpoint in 2014? The spend sounds like it's going up. Do you plan to go live with another module or in another country? What is the expectation there?

Our current expectation is that we will spend 2014 doing the design and blueprinting for what we call deployment two, and deployment two brings in the rest of the US. You may remember that our first deployment was a small portion of our US business so that we could run our test case of the global design, et cetera. This year we will be working on the design for the rest of North America, for the most part, and hopefully we'll go live at that in 2015.

Got it. Thank you.

Next question comes from Brandon Couillard from Jefferies.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Brandon.

Christine, in terms of the organic growth outlook, any chance you could give us more color on Life Sciences versus Diagnostics, what's baked into the 2.5?

A little bit Brandon, and as I mentioned, I think the momentum for Life Science is picking up we are even starting to see signs of life in Europe. Our expectation is that growth, organic growth should accelerate as we move into 2014. Having said that on the diagnostics side, which you know represents two-thirds of our sales, the headwinds are pretty strong. Europe is a huge portion, almost one-third of their total revenues, and it's a tough market. We are actually anticipating that it will be down for us next year. And so I think the net of those two is what is keeping our current expectation to be a very similar growth rate in 2014 as we saw in 2013.

Thanks. In terms of the P&L, could you quantify the ERP specific expenses that were booked in the income statement in 2013 and then what you are contemplating for 2014?

Brandon, I don't have that in front of me right this minute, so let me see if I can get that and then I'll come back with it.

Okay. And then in the Life Science business in the third quarter, I know chromatography has a tendency to be lumpy from time to time. Was there an unusual order or lumpy booking in the period?

Brandon, this is Brad. I think in general we had a stronger fourth quarter in systems or hardware, but in general, there wasn't anything really that stands out between the third and fourth quarter for process chromatography.

Brad, just on the digital PCR placements, could you give us a sense of what your expectation is for the annualized consumables stream per system at, let's say steady-state?

We're seeing something in the range of 20% to 25% of the revenue coming from consumables, and one of the things that is very encouraging is we watched the placements of these instruments in the sense that this is fairly unique within a Life Science context of a closed platform. We have a pretty good measure of how these instruments are being used and they're being used quite heavily. So, that's a very encouraging sign for our future.

Okay, and last one for Norman. There's been several assets in the space looking Diagnostics and Life Sciences that have traded recently. Can you just give us a view on your sense of the pipeline? And what's the chance that we actually see some activity, either bolt-on or something of magnitude here in 2014 on the M&A front?

As you know, we've got about $600 million in cash that we'd obviously like to deploy. We've been pretty careful of not letting that burn a hole in our pocket in the meantime and -- as we bid on assets in 2013. I would say that it seems there is not a tremendous amount in the pipeline at the moment. There are a few things out there that we're taking a look at, but it's not a -- the funnel is not as full as it has been in the past. Having said that, there are a couple of interesting things that we are looking at and hopeful that we can land something.

Super. Thanks so much.

(Operator Instructions)

The next question comes from Jeffrey Matthews from Ram Partners.

Thanks very much. I wondered if you could just take a trip around the world. You called out good business in emerging markets. Could you talk a little bit about areas of strength?

Sure. Maybe we can talk about it, what we're seeing in the group.

This is Brad, and we'll talk about Life Science. (Technical difficulty) Are you still there?

Yes, still here. I don't know what happened.

Somebody got electrocuted (laughter).

I guess I said the wrong thing.

Okay, so, alrighty. So, actually, we did see a turnaround in North America, certainly as we settled as the government sequestration appeared to be ending and ultimately, that helped a little bit in the US. Europe was strong for us, and Europe has been returning and coming back online as governments have rationalized their austerity measures.

We felt particularly strong growth in the emerging markets, specifically in Russia. We've invested a lot there in building out a direct sales organization. We were still tempered a little bit as we made this transition in China and kind of getting that behind us in the fourth quarter. And Japan did pretty good for the fourth quarter, again, of course there's a major currency headwind there.

This is John on diagnostics side. With respect to North America, our business there is growing, and we're focusing a largely amount of our time in the controls and diabetes area as well as immunohematology. As a transition over to Europe, that is really one where we are challenged, I think as Christine mentioned. We have price pressures there as well as lab consolidations.

In the segments that we are in, blood virus being one of the ones that's really, I would say, the area that we're most challenged in. With respect to the emerging markets of eastern Europe and then as you go into the Asia area, we're doing quite well in all of our segments, particularly diabetes. We're seeing those markets evolving in the area of quality control as more and more hospitals and laboratories are interested in implementing quality control in those markets as well as immunohematology. We had some very nice placements in fourth quarter, and that did hurt our margins a bit, but we look forward to getting the reagents streams in the future.

Great, thanks. That's terrific. And then can I ask Norm what the biggest surprise is it you saw in 2013, plus or minus and then what you are really particular focused on in 2014? Thanks.

Well, I think Brad alluded to the distributor changeover that we had. I think that we were a little bit surprised by the magnitude of the impact that that had. And I would also say it was a little bit-- well, maybe we shouldn't have been surprised, but surprised by the government shutdown, which also took its toll on the Life Science business. Sequestration, we had a kind of a sense that was coming, but the shutdown later in the year was a big surprise for us.

Right, and then what are you really focused on in 2014 most particularly?

We are focused on, certainly the top line and trying to grow the top line and especially of these emerging market areas where we seem to have some pretty robust markets. Internally, also working on the cost side of the equation looking at our whole -- the product delivery. How we can more effectively and efficiently deliver the products to the customers. We call that internally our logistics pipeline, and the ringing cost out of the manufacturing organizations. Those are some of the things that we're focused on.

Are those kinds of things, don't they -- is that something you have to do the ERP first and see where --

No, I think that -- obviously you get benefit out of the ERP, but there are lots of projects that we've got going on that are independent.

And then could I finally follow-up on the [Arpidian] and how its -- how -- what your experience has been thus far into it, plus or minus?

I think the experience has actually been quite good. We managed to turn on the first phase and the place didn't collapse like seems to happen at a lot of these things. A few teething problems, I will admit, as we proceeded during the year. But by and large, it's gone pretty well. And so I think that gives us a lot of confidence in the program that we've got and the ability to get deployment two done.

Great. Appreciate it, thanks.

Next question is a further question from the line of Dan Leonard from Leerink.

Thank you. I just thought it was the year-end call, wanted to touch on a couple of product cycles I don't think we've talked about in a little while. So first off, of the BioPlex 2200, you called out the strength there, presumably in autoimmune. Can you remind me where you're at with your menu expansion plans on that instrument, what's on deck for maybe 2014 or 2015 from the broadening that menu?

We are continuing to broaden it in the autoimmune area. We recently released our celiac test in the United States. It's been on the market since early 2013 outside the US. And then we are continuing to work on developing the infectious disease or serology line on that platform.

Any thoughts around the timing on moving your blood virus testing over to the BioPlex channel?

No. Like I said, it is a development process and we're, like I said, we are working on it now. We have hopes that in the coming year we will be able to have something available.

Okay. And then the other one I wanted to touch on, bringing your immunohematology Diamed product line to the US. I know you have a presence of the US with the Biotest business, but what are your thoughts on migrating Diamed over to the states? Thank you.

Yes, that is clearly in our plan to do that, and we are working away at it now. We have a number of initiatives in that area, it is an area of investment for us and has been. I think one of the things that we're focusing on in diagnostics is to deliver some of these products systems to the markets that we've targeted. We're working hard at that. Some of these things are hard to predict because they have a pretty high hurdle in the regulatory area, so I'm a little bit reluctant to try to predict exactly when that's going to happen.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions)

There are no further questions in the queue at this time.

Okay, thank you, Ben. And thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us today. Bye-bye.

Thank you very much, Christine. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our conference call for today. You may now disconnect. Thank you for joining. Have a very good day.