漢瑞祥 (HSIC) 2010 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Henry Schein second quarter conference call.

(Operator Instructions).

I would now like to introduce your host for today's call, Susan Vassallo, Henry Schein's Vice President of Corporate Communications.

Please go ahead, Susan.

Thank you, Operator, and my thanks to each of you for joining us to discuss Henry Schein's connection quarter results.

If you have not received a copy of our earnings news release, you can access it on our website at www.henryschein.com.

With us this morning are Stanley Bergman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Henry Schein; and Steven Paladino, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I would like to state that certain comments made during this call include information that is forward-looking.

As you know, risks and uncertainties involved in the Company's business may affect the matters referred to in forward-looking statements.

As a result, the Company's performance may differ from those expressed in or indicated by such forward-looking statements.

Also, these forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained in Henry Schein's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The content of this conference call contains time sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live broadcast today, August 2, 2010.

Henry Schein undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call.

I ask that during the Q&A portion of today's call, you limit yourself to a single question and a follow-up before returning to the queue.

This will provide the opportunity for as many listeners as possible to ask a question within the one hour we have allotted for this call.

With that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Stanley Bergman.

Thank you, Susan, and good morning.

And thank you everyone for calling into the Henry Schein second quarter conference call.

We are very pleased to report strong top line growth for the quarter.

And we continue to see indications of positive market trends throughout our global business.

We are also very pleased to report that diluted earnings per share for the second half(Sic-see press release) of 2010, is up 13.8% compared with the first half of 2009, excluding restructuring costs in both periods.

And we have increased the low end of our annual 2010 earnings per share guidance, as Steven will discuss later in the call.

Of course, further details on the second quarter will be provided as well.

In a moment, I'll provide commentary on each of our five businesses.

But first, let me ask Steven Paladino, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide an overview of our quarterly financial results.

Steven?

Okay, thank you, Stan, and good morning everyone.

I too am pleased to be reporting strong results for the second quarter of 2010.

Our net sales for the quarter ended June 26, 2010, were $1.8 billion.

Reflecting a 15.1% increase, compared with the second quarter of 2009.

This consists of 15.6% growth in local currencies and a 0.5% decrease related to foreign currency exchange.

In local currencies, our internally generated sales were up 2.1% and acquisition growth contributed 13.5% to our sales.

You can note the details of our sales growth, as it's contained in Exhibit A of our earnings news release that was issued earlier this morning.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2010 were $407.6 million.

Representing 22% of sales, and that's unchanged as a percentage of sales from the second quarter of 2009.

Let me point out that the second quarter SG&A expenses included integration expenses related to the Butler Schein integration, as well as acquisition related costs.

Excluding those expenses, our SG&A as a percentage of sales, improved by 17 basis points, compared with the prior year's second quarter.

Our operating margin for the second quarter of 2010 was 7.5% and declined 13 basis points, compared with the second quarter of 2009.

Again, excluding the impact of integration and acquisition related costs, as I just described, our operating margin increased 6 basis points, compared with the prior year's quarter.

Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 31.2%, and that's down from 32.9% in the prior year second quarter.

And that reflects the certain domestic tax planning strategies that we discussed on our last quarter's conference call, that we have implemented.

Because of those tax strategies, we expect our full year 2010 effective tax rate to continue to be in the 31% to 32% range, as we continue to implement and get benefits of those tax savings initiatives.

Our income from continuing operations attributable to Henry Schein, Inc for the second quarter of 2010, was $84 million or $0.90 per diluted share.

Up 14.6% and 11.1% respectively, compared with the second quarter 2009.

Now I'd like to provide some detail on our sales results for the quarter.

Starting with our North American Dental sales for the second quarter of 2009,(Sic-see press release) increased 8.9% to $677.6 million.

And that consists of 7.5% increase in local currencies and a 1.4% increase related to foreign currency exchange.

Our consumable merchandise sales increased 7.1% in local currencies.

Including a 1.3% increase in internal sales and approximately 5.8% growth related to acquisitions.

This 1.3% internal growth is in line with the 1.2% we reported for the first quarter of this year.

Our Dental Equipment sales and service revenues increased 8.6%, compared with the prior years quarter in local currencies.

Including an 8% increase in internal sales and 0.6% growth due to acquisitions.

This is the second consecutive quarter we have posted positive dental equipment sales growth.

And this quarter's 8% internal growth in local currencies, compares very favorably with the 0.5% growth we reported in the first quarter of this year.

Our North American Medical sales were $286.3 million in the second quarter.

That's a decrease of about 0.4%.

Internally generated sales decreased 4.2% and acquisition growth was 3.8%.

The results in the second quarter of 2010 were negatively impacted by reduced sales of products related to the H1N1 virus, compared to the second quarter of 2009.

Excluding the impact of those sales from the prior year, we estimate that our North American Medical internal sales declined by 1.7%.

We also believe that overall patient traffic in physician offices were down in Q2, and that we performed better than the overall market.

North American Animal Health sales were $234.7 million for the second quarter.

That's a significant increase of 269.7%, primarily related to the Butler Schein transaction.

Our internally generated sales were essentially flat.

And you should note that it's very difficult, at this time, to precisely calculate the internal sales growth of the North American Animal Health business, since that business has been fully integrated as part of Butler Schein.

But our best estimates are that the internal growth was essentially flat.

Looking to our International sales for the second quarter of 2010, they were at $602.4 million, up 1.8%, compared with the prior year's quarter.

This consists of a 4.7% increase in local currencies and a 2.9% decrease related to foreign currency exchange.

Internal sales increased 4.1%, while acquisition growth contributed 0.6%.

Both of those numbers are in local currencies.

I'd like to point out that the international comparisons for the second quarter of 2010, and particularly in Germany, were negatively impacted by the timing of the bi-annual IDS trade show in Europe, which occurred last year.

The IDS show contributed to a difficult comparable in Q2 2009, when we posted sales growth of 13.4% in local currencies for the second quarter of last year.

Our international dental sales, which represent approximately 70% of our international business, grew 2.6% during the quarter.

This consisted of 5.4% growth in local currencies and 2.8% decrease related to foreign currency exchange.

Internally generated sales in local currencies increased 4.4% and acquisitions accounted for an additional 1% growth.

If we look at the breakout between merchandise, consumable merchandise, and equipment, our internal growth in local currencies for Dental Consumable merchandise was 4.7% and 3.8% for dental equipment.

We saw dental equipment sales particularly strong in the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Spain, France, and the Netherlands.

Again, Germany was negatively impacted by last year's IDS show.

So, despite the difficult comparable for dental sales, we still achieved very strong local currency internal sales growth for our international business during the quarter.

Our international Animal Health sales, which represents 27% of our international business, grew 1.2%.

This consisted of 4.2% growth in local currencies, all of that internal, and a 3% decrease related to foreign currency exchange.

Last, our Technology & Value Added services sales for the second quarter of 2010, were $48.4 million, up 13.7%, compared with the prior year's quarter.

This consisted of 13.2% increase in local currencies and a 0.5% increase related to foreign currency exchange.

Our internally generated sales in local currencies, increased 8% and acquisition growth was 5.2%.

And that acquisition growth was primarily due to the acquisition of the European veterinary software and practice management business.

And during the quarter, our overall business, we saw continued strong growth in our electronic services and software businesses.

If we take a brief look at the highlights of our balance sheet and cash flow for the quarter, our operating cash flow for the quarter was $107.3 million.

That compares to last year, which it was $106.7 million.

We continue to expect operating cash flow for the year, to exceed net income.

Let me also point out, at this time, that we currently have a $240 million convertible debt on our balance sheet.

We expect to call that convertible debt in Q3.

And that's really to eliminate one of the more expensive sources of capital that we have.

Our accounts receivable day sales outstanding from continuing operations, increased slightly to 40.3 days compared to 39.8 days for the second quarter of 2009.

Our inventory turns from continuing operations for the second quarter, improved to 6.5 turns, and that compares to 6.2 turns for the second quarter of 2009.

I'd like to conclude my remarks by discussing our 2010 financial guidance.

We are increasing the low end of our range for the 2010 diluted EPS attributable to Henry Schein, Inc.

And we are increasing that to $3.46 per diluted share.

The new range of 2010 diluted EPS attributable to Henry Schein is $3.46 to $3.56.

That compares to the previously issued guidance of $3.44 to $3.56.

We are particularly pleased to be increasing our 2010 EPS guidance range, despite a strengthening of the US dollars against the Euro and the pound Sterling.

Currency exchange is expected to adversely impact, assuming rates stay where they are, our 2010 diluted EPS by $0.05 to $0.06 for the year.

And that's included in our new EPS guidance that we just issued.

Our 2010 guidance is for current continuing operations, as well as completed or previously announced acquisitions.

And does not include, as always, the impact of any potential future acquisitions, if any.

Also, the 2010 guidance excludes the impact of restructuring costs, which were in Q1.

And they were $12.3 million pre-tax or approximately $0.09 per diluted share.

Let me now turn the call back to Stanley.

Thank you, Steven.

I'd like to begin my review of our business with the North American Dental business.

Continued internal consumable merchandise sales growth in local currencies during the second quarter, affirms our confidence, as we discussed in the last conference call, that the market will show gradual improvement for the rest of the year.

In time, we do expect this market to return to more normalized growth, to somewhere around 4% to 5% annually.

Also, our strong internal growth in dental equipment sales during the quarter, is another positive market indicator.

Equipment growth reflects higher demand for basic, as well as for high-tech equipment.

So, we've seen good sales on the traditional equipment, as well as the newer products that have been introduced into dental markets in recent times.

We believe that the pent-up demand for dental equipment will have a positive impact during the second half of the year and our order book continues to grow.

This, of course, we are very pleased with.

We look for particular strength during the fourth quarter, as dentists take advantage of certain tax incentives.

Overall, for the year, we expect the US dental market to be flat, to up by single digit percentages, compared with the year 2009.

We are pleased that domestic dental procedure volumes seems to have stabilized.

And are quite confident that we have and will continue to gain market share in the very important North American dental market.

Now, turning to the North American Medical business.

It's important to bear in mind, that when looking at our estimated internal sales decline of 1.7%, excluding H1N1 products for the year.

We believe that the market for patient visits to physician offices has declined by an even higher percentage.

We believe a lot of the decline, by the way, is as a result of the H1N1 difference in the environment between 2010 and 2009.

However, there is a slight decrease in the number of patient visits across-the-board.

Last quarter, I discussed Henry Schein's ConnectHealth, a major initiative we have launched in the physician arena.

ConnectHealth is a collaboration of major healthcare companies, delivering coordinated digital solutions to physician offices.

Led by Henry Schein Medical, the participants include a world-class leader in electronic health records, namely Allscripts, digital equipment leaders, and a computer hardware supplier, namely Dell.

Of course, the digital equipment leaders are amongst the most prestigious dental equipment, medical equipment manufacturers.

The goal of ConnectHealth is to help physicians deliver better patient care and improved efficiency, through the use of connective technology.

We are very excited about this comprehensive approach, to responding to our customers' needs for digital solutions.

As the definition of meaningful use becomes clearer to the medical practitioner and as the medical practitioner sees the increase in flow into their office, with the healthcare reform legislation, albeit being reimbursed at a lower amount per procedure, we think and believe that the use of electronic medical record will gain further acceptance.

And we believe that together with our partner Allscripts, we are well well-positioned to advance our sales of electronic medical record software, digitalized medical equipment, and our position in the medical marketplace in general.

As we approach the influenza vaccine season, we look forward to solid sales of seasonal vaccines.

Although it's early in the process, we at this stage, anticipate abundant supply from our manufacturers with more doses than we received last year.

More specifically, we expect to sell somewhere between 12 million and even as high as 14 million doses of flu vaccine this year, which compares with about 9 million doses last year.

At this stage, we have been assured by the manufacturers of early availability of flu vaccine.

North American Animal Health -- let's take a look and give you an update on our integration work, with respect to our joint venture Butler Schein Animal Health.

We are very very pleased to report that pricing is uniform across the combined customer base.

Sales terms have been harmonized.

Sales territories have been realigned and assigned.

And all of the branding marketing of billing is now under the Butler Schein Animal Health brand.

This is a remarkable achievement.

All of this done, completed, within a very short period of time.

I mentioned during our last conference call, that we had lost only three of 300 sales representatives, since the formation of the Butler Schein Animal Health joint venture was announced.

And I'm pleased to report today, that the number still holds at three.

By any stretch of imagination, and with 30 years of experience in this field, I can conclusively provide our investors with comfort that this is an extraordinary achievement.

From an operations perspective, we have consolidated two telecenters previously operated by Henry Schein into the Butler network.

As of today, we have closed six distribution centers.

And the final one slated for closure will shut down during the current -- that's this third quarter.

Indeed, we expect that the integration process will be done in its entirety during the third quarter.

So overall, we are pleased that the integration initiatives continue to advance very well.

But, beyond efficiencies and savings to be gained from the integration, we also have several exciting opportunities to grow our Animal Health business in the United States.

I mentioned last quarter, that we are delighted with our success in retaining manufacturers' relationships with both the Butler, former Butler, and the former Henry Schein portions of the business.

As such, we are able to offer a more complete line of products to our veterinary customers and enhance our ability to deepen customer relations.

We are able to bring Butler customers to Henry Schein Financial Services offering for veterinary equipment.

As well as the Henry Schein credit card, which features a 2% cash back benefit on all purchases, which is completely funded by the credit card Company.

Also, Butler customers are now able to purchase their private label products, that have previously been available from Henry Schein Veterinary.

And, in fact, all of the Butler Schein Animal Health customers have access to the complete array of Henry Schein world-renowned private brand product offering, which complements the most comprehensive branded offering in the industry.

With the expansion of our Animal Health presence, our scale and global reach will provide numerous benefits to manufacturers, as well as customers in the years to come.

Of course, these synergies on the sales side are yet to be reached.

As we are at this point in time primarily internally focused, as we should be, on the integration side.

And by the fourth quarter we expect to be back again focused on sales and marketing.

And at the same time, providing a review of the global opportunities that may come from the synergistic operation between Butler Schein Animal Health in the United States and Henry Schein's Global Medical Animal Health business.

Let me now, for a moment review, our international operations.

We are very pleased to be reporting continued sales momentum overseas.

Our international results, reflect growth in the dental and animal health businesses, with particular strength in Spain, France, Holland, and the UK.

The German consumable business also continues to show strength.

Of course, the German equipment business had challenging comparables, because of the second quarter 2009 IDS sales.

We expect to see a similar pattern again next year, when the IDS has its convention in 2010.

In Europe, we are growing at a rate of about double our estimates of the market growth.

And in general, our customers have not seen a slowdown in patient traffic.

But Europe has been in the news a great deal lately, as various countries are facing issues with sovereign debt and are discussing potentially dramatic austerity measures.

We are not seeing an impact from those challenges on our businesses in Europe, for several reasons.

First, our growth in Europe is driven more by market share gain, than by market growth.

Second, the majority of our European dental sales are in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

And those countries are not facing the challenges some other countries are, at least not from a healthcare point of view.

In fact, we've continued to grow nicely and gain market share in each of these three geographies, plus, of course, the important market of Italy.

We recently introduced financial services into Germany, France, and the UK.

And that is a good example of what's driving our growth.

While we continue to add new customers, our growth largely is coming from increased penetration into existing accounts.

And third, as practitioners become more and more efficient, we believe we can be an important part of the solution.

There is a need for practitioners to operate a more efficient practice in Europe, as of course here in the States.

And we have the tools, as is the case here in the US.

Globally, we will continue to help dental and medical offices run more efficiently, of course as well as Animal Health.

While delivering the highest level of care to their patients, whether through advanced technology, practice management software, or competitively priced products that are used every day.

We are most determined to help customer practices to run smoothly while providing value for unrivaled offering of products and services.

Henry Schein, to remind our investors, is the only Company serving dental, medical, and veterinary offices on a pan-European basis.

Because those markets remain highly fragmented, we have considerable opportunity to take market share gains and consolidate.

Of course, this is not limited to only the United States, Canada and Europe, but also to Australia and New Zealand, where we are doing very very well.

As well as an opportunity for us to enter-- continue to enter other markets that present global reach from a Henry Schein point of view.

Let me conclude my review of our businesses with a discussion of the technology and value-added services part of Henry Schein.

Where once again, we have posted positive growth in local currencies, as well as, of course, sales including acquisitions.

We are always looking to bring our customers leading-edge technology solutions, and now we've made accessing those solutions even easier.

At the CDA Spring Conference this past May, out in California, we launched DENTRIX Mobile.

This is a remote access tool, that allows dentists to view their appointment schedules and patient information from their smartphones and mobile devices.

DENTRIX Mobile is a new feature of the DENTRIX G4 practice management system, that provides dentists who are away from practices, secure access to schedules of all their practice, provides, and patients.

The system provides access to appointments by provider.

They also can access important patient details, such as prescriptions and medical alerts.

Also, a few weeks ago, we were pleased to announce, that our DENTRIX Enterprise practice management software received national certification from the US Indian Health Service Office of Information Technology and the Division of Oral Health.

DENTRIX Enterprise, which is a solid and well performing and well received system, has been in use by individual IHS sites for two years, with-- and has been well received.

And can now be deployed as the electronic dental record solution for all federal and tribal sites in the United States.

We are extremely pleased with the terrific job that our development people out at DENTRIX, in Utah, have accomplished.

It is gratifying that DENTRIX Enterprise has received the prestigious National Certification of Design.

And it's been selected by IHS for this important project.

Of course, receiving the certification leads other potential enterprise customers to appreciate the functionality and quality of the DENTRIX system.

So, there's a lot going on at Henry Schein.

Steve and I will be very very pleased to take further questions, or to take questions, actually.

And expand on the performance of the business and expectations for the future.

So, thank you for your attention.

And now, Operator, we are ready to take questions.

(Operator Instructions).

Your first question comes from the line of Robert Jones, with Goldman Sachs.

Thanks for the questions.

Steve, you mentioned calling back the convertible debt next quarter.

Can you just maybe give us a little bit more insight on the impact that will have around interest expense?

And then maybe if that actually has any impact on share count?

Sure, right now, today's price when we call it, it will probably have very little impact on share count.

But, obviously, if the stock price continues to increase, it will have a future benefit to stock share count going forward.

With respect to the direct P&L costs, we would expect to finance that and have really a slight benefit to our interest expense, going forward, from the time that we call it.

We are eligible to call the convertible sometime after August 20, on or after August 20.

So, we are today putting in place some long term financing, in order to accomplish that.

But we feel comfortable that we'll get that done during Q3.

So not a major impact, then?

No, not a major impact today.

But again, the future impact, as the stock price increases, might be a nice impact that we're looking to avoid.

Okay, and then just one follow-up.

It seemed that sales in the quarter were helped from acquisitions.

Particularly, in the North American dental segment.

Can you just maybe give us a little bit more detail on what exactly those acquisitions were?

And then, how much did that contribute, as we think about the back half of the year and the updated guidance?

How much does that contribute to guidance?

Okay.

You know, we did some smaller acquisitions, both in Q1, where we're now seeing the full quarter impact in Q2.

As well as some additional smaller acquisitions in the dental-- the North American dental market in Q2.

We didn't do any press releases on those acquisitions, since they really weren't significant.

Most of those acquisitions are in our dental specialties area.

And we would expect that this current quarter's impact on sales will continue to have a similar impact going forward.

On a bottom line basis, it really had very little -- maybe slightly negative impact this quarter -- those acquisitions, because of one-time costs.

But, we would expect the sales to continue in Q3 and Q4, at the current rates that we saw in Q2.

Thanks for the questions.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Valiquette, with UBS.

Hi, thanks, good morning.

A couple questions here.

First, on the North American medical business, just wanted to get your thoughts on the back half of the year, as far as the soft physician office visits?

Should that-- should we assume that's just going to continue?

And, obviously, it's hard to have a crystal ball on that.

But, just wanted to get, at least your initial view, on whether that's more short lived from your point of view or whether that might drag on for a while?

Yes.

Steve, of course as you said, no one has a crystal ball.

There is-- there are lower number of visits to the physician offices, at this point.

Quite a bit of that, of course, is driven by the H1N1 change.

There was more concern last year, versus the concern this year.

It is very hard to determine how much, exactly, the traffic is related to H1N1.

There will be lots of articles written in that area, and there's a lot of debate.

It's quite clear what our sales-- additional sales were of the products, related to H1N1, which we've given our estimates in the call.

We're not down on the medical markets.

There is that sentiment out there, that we think that there could be a few ups and downs.

Longer term, medium term shall we say, healthcare reform will drive further visits into the office, particularly at the primary care level.

Although it is expected that reimbursement per procedure is likely to go down.

So, the use of products is likely to remain stable, taking out H1N1, more or less stable and go up a little bit.

Having said that, there will be no doubt lower reimbursement per procedure.

Lower reimbursement per procedure will mean that the practitioners will be seeking more value for the dollars they spend on products.

And that's our job -- to make sure that we provide the best value in products to our customers.

This could, in fact, dampen internal growth.

But, it's highly unlikely that it will dampen profits.

In fact, we think the opposite.

This, together with the increase in demand for electronic medical records, which will also be driven by the need to make the practice more efficient, but at the same time will be driven by the government subsidies -- all of this should help our business in the long run.

So, we will be called upon to help practitioners operate a better business-- more efficient business.

So that they can provide more quality care to more patients-- higher quality care to more patients.

All of this, we think, will present good opportunity for our medical business.

And I think one has to be very cautious when one reads all the articles about traffic, as there are many dimensions to the medical practice.

And certainly, the impact of any change in patterns on our business needs to be very carefully thought through.

In fact, we are quite optimistic about our medical business.

Okay, one other quick one -- as far as the plus 8% growth in North American dental equipment, that was obviously pretty strong.

Any further color on that?

Besides just breaking it down into old and new equipment, as you mentioned?

As far as other product categories, is there any one that drove that in particular, that you want to shed any light on?

Yes.

I think Steven may have mentioned, I don't remember if I mentioned it -- but there certainly is pent-up demand, replacement of traditional equipment.

Not sure how much is pent-up demand and how much is the desire to just have a better office-- more efficient office, a better appearing office.

So, we continue to remain quite optimistic.

Our backlog, which is what we monitor carefully, is consistent with prior years, in terms of the pattern as to when backlog is created during the cycle of the year.

Of course, we continue to be optimistic on some of the new technology products.

Whether it's the 3D x-ray system, certainly digital-- there's still many many practices, well over half.

Some would argue, well over 60% of practices still don't have a digital x-ray.

Of course, CAT Cam is a very exciting area.

Only a very small percentage of dentists have CAT Cam.

We expect that to do well.

And, so overall, at this stage, as we are sitting here today, we remain quite optimistic about our dental equipment business for the remainder of the year.

Of course, also you're aware of the tax incentives that will be surely viewed by our practitioners at the year-end, as an important part of their practice planning, cash flow planning.

The market is a little bit challenged on securing financing.

It was much easier to secure financing two years ago.

But, still Henry Schein Financial Services, in one way or another, is able to secure financing for 90% or so of applications.

And of course, that's down from the 98% to 97% of two years ago.

But, also we think that we're getting more applications for financing directed to us, versus going elsewhere.

That's a credit to our Financial Services people.

And overall, we remain quite optimistic about our dental equipment business.

And we see a consistent, yet slow, increase in the internal growth rate on the consumable side.

Let me just add-- I'll add also, just financially on equipment -- a little bit of color.

The good news, is we saw good growth both in traditional, as well as high-tech categories.

We continue to see high-tech growing at a faster pace, but traditional also grew nicely.

And within high-tech, I would say that the fastest growing category is in the digital radiography area, and that's probably -- those trends we would expect to continue growing forward.

Okay, great, thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of A.

J.

Rice, with Susquehanna Financial.

Hello, everybody.

A couple of quick questions, if I might.

Obviously, part of the story has been the potential for improvement in the European or the international business margin.

Can you give us some flavor for how you did this quarter?

And where we're at in terms of realizing those margin gains that you're targeting long term?

Sure.

We saw another good increase in international operating margins.

I don't have the exact number, but it was similar to Q1 operating margin expansion.

That's moving-- continuing to move in the right direction for us.

We believe that we'll achieve -- we'll actually exceed our operating margin expansion goals for the current year, internationally.

Some of that now, obviously, because of foreign exchange, didn't all translate into bottom line earnings.

But, we did see foreign exchange have about $0.01 negative impact for us in Q2.

But, overall we feel like international operating margins are continuing to go in the right direction.

Okay.

And I know on the Butler acquisition, the original guidance was that (inaudible) this year and accretive next year.

And I think the maximum [relation] was in this quarter or next quarter as you integrated the business -- sounds like integration has gone well and overall, the assimilation has probably exceeded expectations.

Is there any update?

Do you think it will be additive more quickly, maybe than you thought?

Or have we passed the worst in dilutive impact in this quarter, since most of the integration sounds like it's done?

Yes, we still have a little bit more integration, obviously, in Q3, as Stanley talked about.

But, certainly we're expecting to be ahead of schedule in completing the physical integration.

And therefore, we think that there is benefit going forward.

Right now, we're not changing our overall guidance on that acquisition-- the impact of it.

But, you know, we certainly believe that there's good opportunity now to start focusing on revenue growth.

And we think that the combined Company is, obviously, the leader in the market and should be able to drive strong revenue growth.

And we're going to start really focusing on that, starting right after the integration is complete.

So, there's potentially upside there.

But right now, I think the good news is that the heavy lifting, so to speak, on the integration was completed extraordinarily well.

And we retained all but three of the salespeople-- the field salespeople.

So overall, I think we're in good position going into late this year and next year.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of John Kreger, with William Blair.

Hi, thanks very much.

As you look across your key businesses, could you just talk a bit about which businesses you're seeing underlying demand and volume improvements, versus flat, versus maybe slowing?

And the context of the question is, a lot of other healthcare companies have talked about some slowing underlying demand trends in the second quarter.

Doesn't sound like you're really seeing that.

But if you could just perhaps clarify where you had positive or negative surprises as the year's gone on, that would be helpful.

John, overall, our sentiment is consistent with our message delivered during our first quarter call.

And that is, we believe we reached the bottom of the overall market and that we're seeing a slow increase in demand for our products.

Any movement either way, is in terms-- should be viewed in terms of basis points, rather than major percentage changes.

There is very little data out there-- solid data that we can rely on.

Having said that, our feel for the North American dental market is that the market is probably flat to growing slightly.

A little stronger in Canada, a little stronger with large practices, and that consumables are in the positive territory, not much.

But, we're gaining market share from an internal point of view for sure-- internal local currency point of view.

The equipment side is stronger than last year, although not quite back to where it was before the third quarter of 2008.

The trend that we saw in the second quarter, is a trend that, more or less, we expect to see played out during the third and fourth quarter.

On the Medical side, I already gave some thoughts.

Have to ex out the H1N1, for sure.

How stable the market is once you've exed that out, is hard to tell, because it's really hard to gauge exactly how much the impact of H1N1 was.

It definitely had an impact, but not a huge impact.

Definitely an impact.

The traffic is down.

How much of the traffic is down related to non-H1N1 items, hard to tell.

Probably a little bit, but not huge.

Definitely see over the next quarters ahead, definitely over the next year, more visits driven by healthcare reform on the primary care side, probably less visits on the specialty side.

All in all, more visits, but lower reimbursement per procedure means the practitioners are going to be shopping for better value.

Means we need to be there to help with better value and help with electronic medical record, that is going to be in demand and the related integration, through digitalized equipment.

On the Vet side, very hard to tell.

We believe the market may be flat to slightly down.

One has to be very careful, when looking at statistics.

First of all, there are two markets, agriculture/large animal and the companion animal.

We are primarily in the companion animal, virtually totally.

Then one has to look at the swing between agency business and business where the full sale is booked.

This can be very confusing when looking at numbers in this area.

We spent a lot of time on this and we conclude that it's just not easy to figure this all out.

Then, third, there is the trend between large practices and small practices.

It's our view, that the larger practices are suffering to a greater extent than the smaller practices.

In fact, Steven and I were just talking about that this morning.

Hard to know the exact reason, but it's a fact.

It seems like traffic in the small-large practice, is down a little bit.

In the large practice, it seems like it's up a little bit.

All in all, this is a very--we now view, remains a very good market.

Europe, well, it's hard to give you a feel for the entire of Europe.

But, our view is that on balance, the market is probably flat but more likely to be growing in low single digits.

Have to take out the IDS impact in the second quarter for equipment.

Taking that out, we believe we're in positive low single digit growth areas.

Consumable more stable, equipment in parts could be a little bit on the upswing, discounting for the IDS.

So, on balance, we remain quite optimistic that our markets are more or less flattish to slightly up.

But, definitely bullish on our ability to gain market share in every market -- I have to be careful to use the word every, but practically every market that we're in.

That's great color.

Thanks, Stanley.

Steve, one quick question.

If you think about what's in your guidance for the second half of the year versus the first half.

Do you expect the driver to shift at all between margin and revenue, compared to what you got in the first half of the year?

Well, we still expect to see overall operating margin expansion for the full year.

And, as I said in the prepared remarks, we saw some operating margin expansion for the first six months.

It was negatively impacted by the integration expenses and the acquisition costs.

By the way, those two expenses in total, probably contributed to somewhere around $0.03 negative impact on our current Q2 quarter.

So, we look through that, because those are more one-time items.

But overall, we still think that we'll see operating margin expansion going forward.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Willoughby, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Steve or Stanley, has the deal related activity in the dental sector added any self-manufactured capabilities at all?

And then, just quickly, what have you assumed for the convert refinancing in this year's numbers?

Is there any contribution there?

Hi, Bob.

On the manufacturing side, I think we've been quite clear in our intentions there.

Where we cannot access a product, and you know, it goes back for those that are following us-- have followed us for years, it goes back to the days when we manufactured dental chairs.

Once we were able to access a good line of dental chairs, we then got out of the manufacturing business.

Likewise with digital x-ray.

In the early days, no one would give us a good digital x-ray.

We brought to market our own.

Once we were able to secure a good line of dental--digital x-rays, we got out of that business.

We experienced a similar situation on the specialty side.

And on the specialty side, we entered the implant business about five years ago, as a manufacture with Camlog.

We could not access any of the major implant lines at that time.

We still own a significant interest in the Camlog International business.

Likewise, we have undertaken a similar initiative on the Orthodontics side.

Where, through Ortho organizers, we do have some, not a lot, but some manufacturing capability.

A lot of the products that Ortho organized itself, including products that sold through the Schein private brand line and the [Mazel] line are actually acquired from third parties.

So, that's our general philosophy.

And in general, where we can access -- where we have a problem accessing a line, we will manufacture.

There are here and there opportunities that we take advantage of -- during the glove crisis of several years ago, we made an investment in a glove machine system.

And those kinds of opportunities present themselves -- we at one point had a problem in accessing dental anesthetic.

We invested in a plant.

We subsequently sold our interest in that plant and no longer own an interest, by the way, in the glove machinery.

So, those kinds of opportunities appear from time to time, and where it makes sense we will invest accordingly.

Let me, Bob, on your second question, the convert.

So, we think it will be very slightly accretive as we refinance the convert for the balance of the year.

But it really is because of the timing and the year being substantially completed by the time we call it and get the financing in place.

It really will have very small impact for the balance of the year.

Of course, we do believe that as the stock price increases -- since the strike price on the convert was $46 and change, that obviously, as the stock price increases, it has a further benefit to us.

And we're hoping that-- not hoping, but obviously by eliminating the convert, we'll eliminate any further dilution from the convert, as the stock price increases.

Right.

That's great.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Leckow, with Barrington Research.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Just a question on your dental equipment backlog.

One of the big differentiators between the pattern we saw building last year, versus this year, is in that basic category.

And Stanley, do you believe we're seeing the beginning of practices investing additional square footage or new office locations?

Or are we merely seeing a replacement of aging chairs and just those basic upgrades that they might have to do?

Very good question, Derek.

And we internally discuss this on a regular basis.

We do think-- there are a couple of clear points and a couple of items that are a bit more hazy.

One thing that is clear, is our corporate accounts footprint, larger practices for equipment is growing.

The consumable side is a little bit more challenging, but we are growing our consumable market share in that area, as well.

Although we have a very large market share already and think that the related equipment business is doing well.

The number of new designs requests is nowhere near the level it was two years ago.

It bounces around -- one month it's up, one month it's down.

So, it's clear that it's not as robust.

It is also clear that people that were going to replace equipment two years ago and that didn't do it two years ago are coming back to do that.

There are new practices opening, no question about it.

Not ,again, as robust as a couple years ago.

There is some private equity money coming into the corporate side.

So overall, we remain optimistic that we're moving towards the numbers on the equipment side that we experienced two years ago.

But, don't believe we're going to be at that number in the next several quarters.

And would this lead you to then -- I mean, at this point in time, maintain your current level of sales force representation and also your service capabilities?

Or do you think it's time to start to see some investment in those two groups?

And also then, finally, just another question on the Human Resources.

Wondering about the mix between the sales reps over on the veterinary side, are you adding any reps to the group?

And is that a net number that you provided, that three loss of sales reps, what's the net number?

Right, on the numbers, well -- I don't have those in my head, but Steven usually knows those numbers, and he'll think about it while I'm talking or look it up.

Okay.

On the dental North American side, we continue to be aggressively recruiting experienced equipment and consumable representatives.

I don't think our overall number has increased, but the quality of our sales force has increased.

We have been able to attract experienced representatives.

And I would say particularly in the last year on the dental side.

Many of those representatives are not yet fully productive, as they have non-competes and have to sit on the sideline.

But, I've had no problem in attracting good representatives.

We slowed down on our rookie classes during the recessionary period, but I believe we just had one and we are going to have another one soon.

So, we continue to invest in our field sales representatives on the dental side in the United States and in Canada.

And we expect that number to grow slightly over time.

But, definitely the quality of that sales force to increase with the addition of competitor representatives.

On the technology side-- on the tech service people, I don't know the exact answer.

But, my guess is we've continued to add slightly, but also to rebalance.

And we've probably -- not probably, we are shifting towards those parts of the country that are more economically robust and filling out in other parts of the country.

But overall, my suspicion or my thoughts are, that we are increasing slightly the number of representatives -- technical representatives -- and shifting around.

By the way, you don't need a lot of technical representation for digital x-ray, and for D4D, the technical service, and for i-CAT.

You need more technical representatives for the installation of the traditional equipment.

And your last question is on the Butler Schein side.

The sales force, as Steven indicated, is stable.

Clearly, after the integration is complete and we start focusing on the selling side versus being inwardly focused.

And I think it's very important for us to remain inwardly focused through the third quarter past the beginning of the fourth.

We cannot take our hands off the wheel, in terms of making sure that the systems are working well, that all the challenges that go with an integration are dealt with.

There's no point to advancing sales on the marketing side or additional salespeople or adding additional telesales people -- field or telesales -- until such time, as the integration is complete.

It's going as well, perhaps even slightly better, as we discussed at our Board meeting last week, with our venture partners.

Everyone is happy.

But, we cannot take our hands off the wheel, on the integration side, until the last distribution set is integrated and all of the software changes have been made.

Once that's done, it will be full bore, in terms of sales and marketing and also adding additional field and telesales representation in areas where we feel we can take advantage.

In addition to that, by the way, there will be further cooperation, as noted early on, between our US and our global animal health business and create the synergies, as we have on the dental side.

Just to give you the second part of your question, on the Butler Schein side, those three salespeople, that is not a net number.

That's an absolute number.

We only lost three people, in total, since the integration has started.

And overall, our field sales consultants were up modestly.

We added about seven people on a worldwide basis this quarter, versus the end of Q1.

With four of those people in the North American dental market and the balance in international.

Thanks very much.

Good luck.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Marsh, with Barclays.

Good morning.

A couple quick things, Stanley and Steve.

Just on the guidance, want to make sure I'm hearing it correctly.

The FX and the tax rate seem to be offsetting each other, still, as you go forward -- sounds like they are both bigger impact than last quarter.

I want to make sure I heard that right.

And then Steve, when you talk about the convert redemption being slightly beneficial, is that $0.01 -- as much as $0.01 benefit in 2010, or no?

On your second question, no.

It will be less than $0.01.

It won't even round to $0.01.

Got it.

Because we'll only have four months of benefit, so it will be less than $0.01.

And I think you're right, and I haven't looked at it exactly the way you're saying.

I think the effective tax rate being lower, is offsetting some of the foreign exchange negative impact.

Right now the Dollar to the Euro is at $1.31 to almost $1.32.

So, the Euro strengthened a little bit from where it's been, but still compared to our initial expectations, we're probably $0.05 to $0.06 negative since the beginning of the year, again assuming exchange rates stay where they are.

Okay, got it.

And on taxes, I know it's way too early to talk about '11.

But seems like directionally, should we not assume that you have the ability to drive a more efficient tax rate over a period of time, or do we really think of 2010 as just an anomaly?

2010 is not an anomaly.

We think we can keep the effective tax rate at a similar range going forward.

I'm hesitant to say that we can bring it down further next year, but I think we can keep it in a similar range as in the 2010 effective tax rate.

Great.

And just on the Section 168, I'm assuming you guys continue to feel pretty comfortable that that will be extended into 2011, or is it too early to say?

It's kind of early to say.

I still think that we believe that that will be extended, but it's really early to say.

I think next quarter's conference call we can give a better update.

Finally, on the acquisitions in Dental, Steve, it sounds like mostly specialty.

Do we assume that's mostly orthodontic dealers, and am I wrong to think that's an annualized benefit of $70 million to $80 million -- so am I right in size and am I right in where you are?

Yes, the size is right on.

Actually, it's probably a little bit north of that.

On a full year basis, obviously we'll have less this year because the $70 million to $80 million for 2010 is a good number.

But on an annualized basis we'll be higher, because obviously the acquisitions in total did not happen at the beginning of the year.

And I'm not sure if I have a lot more information -- it is within our dental specialty area.

I don't know if I have a lot more specific granular on product categories than that.

Okay, but you call that orthodontic and you've been in implant.

So you're saying you don't want to be too much more specific than that at this point?

That's right, but it's in that specialty group.

Got it.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Close with Jefferies & Company.

Yes, thanks for getting me in here.

Just really quick, try this another way with respect to the dental trends to get comfort with respect to the remaining second half.

If you look back at the second quarter and looked at the individual months April, May, June -- can you go over what kind of progression you saw or trends that you saw as the months progressed throughout the quarter?

When we looked at that in the past, it's not always a good indicator, because sometimes we see a strong month, and then the next month is not as strong and because of purchasing patterns of the end-user.

So overall I can tell you -- we think the better way of looking at it, and I'm really referring to on equipment, is the fact that our order book is growing, has been growing for the full year, really means that overall equipment is showing some positive signs.

But to look at equipment on one month versus another because of the timing of the installation really, we don't think it's a good indicator.

As far as the consumables, consumables have been pretty consistent.

Last quarter we were 1.2% local internal consumable growth.

This quarter a little bit ahead of that, 1.3%, and we're kind of feeling like directionally it's continuing to go in that positive direction, so -- but again looking at specific months, probably it could give you a false positive or a false negative.

Okay, and then just I guess a follow-up on the $0.05 to $0.06 on the foreign exchange.

Just to be clear, previously I think in the last quarter, did you not say $0.04 to $0.05?

So just wanted to see what the change was there.

It's really, it's the same range, so it's not that there's a change.

It's just when we looked at the detailed calculation, rather than $0.04 to $0.05 it was actually $0.05 to $0.06, so it's really not anything different.

Just a refinement of the calculation.

Okay, I just wanted to be clear on the $0.04 to $0.05 previously.

And then just really quick, with respect to the North American medical market, obviously a lot of talk about trends in terms of the physicians moving towards the hospitals or becoming employed by the hospitals.

Can you talk a little bit about how you're dealing with that or how you're addressing that?

I believe you've started some -- like consulting or health services business to maybe build business or build communication with the hospitals and keep those physicians.

Could you maybe go into your strategy on that on a go forward basis?

Yes.

We're well over the limits right now, and it's probably best for you to give Steven a call.

But in summary, because I think this is probably of interest to our entire investors and group, we conducted a strategic review 2.5 years ago, and the results of that strategic review was amongst other things the establishment of two major areas of focus.

One was on the large practices and the emerging relationships between physicians and hospital networks, and that connection established the healthcare services group, moving resources from the small practice part of the business into that, and that has been quite effective and certainly timely.

Our relationship with Medline also helps in that regard as well as the Allscripts relationship, two other strategic partners that we've put in place to a large extent to address this issue.

And the other area of major trend was the growing drive towards specialty and particularly large specialty groups, and we have in that area also put some focus into play.

I think we should probably conclude at this time, and maybe one more short question?

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Johnson with Robert Baird.

Thank you and Stanley, I'll keep it very quickly.

Thanks for all of the color on this.

Steve, if I could just ask then a couple clarifying questions on modeling and that will be it.

You said there was $0.01 impact this quarter from FX, and everybody seems to be trying to get down to very detailed on guidance here.

So that implies -- is there $0.05 drag or so in the second half of the year from FX?

And I think last quarter you were guiding to below 32% tax rate, so really only an incremental $0.01 or $0.02 pickup here from the new tax rate guidance.

Is that a fair assessment?

Yes, the only thing is that on the taxes that's correct.

But on the foreign exchange, it's probably $0.01 or a little bit over $0.01 per quarter, not $0.05 for the balance of the year.

It's $0.05 to $0.06 for the full year.

Okay, great.

And the minority interest line, a little above what I was looking for this quarter -- obviously Butler had a good quarter.

But the restructuring charges, the Butler charges from the restructuring, kind of reduced the minority interest expense this quarter.

Is that correct?

So should that be picking up on a go forward basis?

Yes, that's correct, but also the other big contributor was on our Camlog business, where we also own a majority interest that had a good quarter.

Okay, net going forward though, you think that line begins to tick up starting the next couple quarters?

Yes, I think more so in Q4, because there's still some integration expenses in Butler in Q3.

Very helpful.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you very much everyone.

Thank you for calling in.

I'm sorry we went over, but it was quite a complex quarter, and there's a lot going on in the business.

The numbers actually were quite clean, but there's a lot going on, a lot of noise going on in the marketplace.

As I think you can tell from the prepared remarks, the answers to questions, Steven and I remain, at this point in time, quite bullish on the future of the business.

We think there is a complexity in the marketplace that needs to be understood from a nuanced point of view, and we think we will continue to gain market share, manage our expenses and grow the business and therefore increase shareholder value.

Thank you for calling.

Steven can be reached directly at 631-843-5915 and Susan Vassallo at 631-843-5562 if you have any questions.

Thank you very much and look forward to speaking in about 90 days.

Bye-bye.

This concludes today's conference call.

You may now disconnect.