Materialise NV
Q3 2014 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 12 Nov 2014

[Operator:]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Materialise NV Third Quarter 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s call, Jody Burfening of LHA. Please go ahead.

[Jody Burfening:]

Thank you, Amanda. And thank you everyone for joining us today for Materialise third quarter earnings conference call. With us on the call are Fried Vancraen, Chief Executive Officer; Peter Leys, Executive Chairman; and Frederic Merckx, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s call and webcast are being accompanied by a slide presentation that reviews Materialise strategic operational and financial performance for the third quarter. To access the slides, if you have not done so already, please go to the Investors section of the company’s website at www.materialise.com. The earnings press release, which was issued earlier this morning can be found on this page as well. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company’s plans, expectations, growth prospects, among other things. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed, including competitive dynamics and industry changes. Any forward-looking statements, including those related to the company’s future results and activities, represent management’s estimates as of today and should not be relied upon as representing estimates as of any subsequent day. Management disclaims any duty to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or changes in expectations. A more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties and other factors which may impact the company’s future business or financial results can be found in the prospectus filed with the SEC on June 26, 2014. Finally, management will discuss certain non-IFRS measures on today’s conference call. A reconciliation table is contained in the earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation. With those housekeeping items out of the way, I would now like to turn the call over to Materialise’ Executive Chairman, Peter Leys. Peter?

[Peter Leys:]

Thank you, Jody. And thank you everyone for joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. Slide three of the deck has the agenda for today. First, I will briefly discuss the highlights of our third quarter. I will then hand over to Fried, who will give you some more detail on our more strategic achievements over the last three months, including our acquisition of OrthoView. Fried will then turn the call to Frederic, who will give you more detail on our financial performance and who will also give you an updated guidance for 2014, and finally, I will come back to discuss some of our major operational achievements of Q3 and also to give you some information about our priorities for the remainder of the year and after all that, we will be glad to answer any questions that you may have. If you would kindly turn to slide four, now if we look back at our first full quarter as a public company then there are at least two things that we are particularly proud of. First, during our third quarter, frankly, pretty much like during our second quarter, we executed our strategy of investing heavily in the near-term, both in research and development and in sales and marketing in order to accelerate growth and increase profitability after 2015. Second and at least as important, we are happy to report that we were able to successfully combine the execution of our strategic plan with a strong and consistent operational and financial performance and this bodes on the top, as well as on the bottomline. If you look at the topline first, our revenues, you will note that revenues increased by almost 17% to €19.8 million in Q3, that growth was driven first and foremost by a strong growth in the 3D Software Printing segment, but also by strong growth within our Industrial Production segment. If you look at the bottomline, we have an adjusted EBITDA of more than €2 million in Q3, which represents approximately 10.4% of revenues. That is lower than Q3 of last year, obviously, because of our increased spending in sales and marketing and R&D. R&D for instance increased by more than €1 million as compared to the third quarter. These are the highlights and let me now turn the call to Fried, who will discuss some of our strategic achievements over the quarter.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Thank you, Peter. Good morning or good afternoon to everyone on the call with us today. Please turn to slide five, our stated objective in raising capital through an IPO was first of all to give ourselves additional resources to invest aggressively in 2014 and 2015. And then, second, to have the flexibility to make buy or build decisions about the most efficient way to accelerate our revenue and earnings growth. We are currently applying the build strategy in our 3D Printing Software segment with good results. As Frederic will tell you, our results indicate that we have print manufacturers to support our platform to a growing extent to-date and our investments are aimed at supporting them even better in the future, with on one hand, an expanded sales team and on the other hand, highly integrated products. During the third quarter, we continued to invest in building new Medical products, principally our X-ray solution for knee replacement, but also some complementary product lines. And expanding our sales and marketing teams worldwide, particularly in high growth regions in Asia. However, we spent somewhat less than anticipated in expanding our sales teams. Also we believe that spending wisely is preferable to spending rapidly, and we want to ensure that we are hiring salespeople with the right expertise and a cultural fit for materials. Also in our Industrial Production segment we are following the build strategy, by investing in increased production capacity and in developing new added value solutions. In addition to purchasing five new machines during the quarter, we lost for instance eGrip, a product for the German-based company SCHUNK. eGrip is a tool that enables SCHUNK customers to solve their production automation problems. eGrip delivers a fully automated design service to link standard SCHUNK components with the geometry of a specific part that needs to be fixed and placed. eGrip further automates the quotation, order and delivery process that is fully handled by our 3D Printing operations. This is a beautiful illustration of the strong combination among our core competences in engineering, software development and 3D Printing production to develop high-value added solutions. In our Medical segment, we have a good illustration of the buy approach, where we completed the acquisition of OrthoView, a U.K.-based company that gives us new channels to distribute our surgical preplanning software tools and related 3D print products. We placed 8.5 million pound sterling to acquire OrthoView including 1.2 million pounds of cash. Through the reorganization of revenue and cost synergies, we expect acquisition will be accretive to Materialise earnings per share within 12 months. OrthoView software allows orthopedic surgeons to take 2D digital X-ray data from databases known as Picture Archiving Communications Systems or PACS and apply 2D templates of orthopedic implants to these data for preoperative surgical planning. Through the addition of OrthoView’s sales force and distribution channels, we are gaining access to over 11,000 orthopedic surgeons who focus primarily on joint replacement. They are based in 2,000 hospitals and we also can partner now with 50 medical device companies globally of which the templates are available to OrthoView. Of particular interest to us, OrthoView will accelerate our penetration in the U.S. hospital markets. Also Materialise will gain access to the PACS companies as a distribution channel. To OrthoView’s distribution channels we may and this channel is new to Materialise and the customers of OrthoView have been asking for 3D surgical planning solutions as they are offered by Materialise. On a U.K. GAAP basis, OrthoView generated revenue of 3.3 million pounds and an EBITDA margin of approximately 27.5% for its fiscal year that’s ended in March 31, 2014. OrthoView’s business has been stable over the past few years and we intend to invest in integrated -- in integrating our 3D solutions with their 2D products over the next 12 months. In parallel, we will also combine our sales forces and distribution channels. As a result, we expect to begin generating return from the acquisition of OrthoView by the end of 2013 -- 2015 in an accelerated way. And now, I will turn the call to Frederic for a review of our financial business.

[Frederic Merckx:]

Thank you, Fried. Let’s turn to slide six. During the third quarter of 2014, we increased our revenue by 16.9%. Revenue from software sales both 3D Printing and Medical Software represented 31% of total Q3 revenue. Revenue from end parts manufacturing, this is including the Medical end parts, represented 39% of Q3 revenue. The remaining 30% was generated through sales of prototyping business. In terms of our segment breakdowns for the first nine months of the year, both 3D Printing Software and Industrial Production increased their relative revenue share. 3D Printing Software grew to 22% of total revenue and Industrial Production grew to 41% of total revenue. Slide seven shows our corresponding adjusted EBITDA numbers for the third quarter. As a result of the significant €1.1 million increase in R&D spending, adjusted EBITDA decreased by €405,000 to over €2 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the third quarter of 2014 was 10.4%, please be aware that we fully expense our R&D spending. As illustrated, our higher margin software segment has increased its contribution to consolidated adjusted EBITDA, generating 58% of the total for the first nine months of 2014, compared to 45% for the same period last year and the Industrial Production segment increased its contribution to 14% of the total from 9% last year. Slide eight shows the Q3 financial performance of our 3D Printing Software segment. Topline growth was 29%, well in line with the overall industry growth and resulted from a 32% year-over-year revenue increase from new software licenses. Another positive metric in Q3 was a 53% gain in software sales generated from printer OEMs, including direct sales to OEMs, as well as sales to their end customers. Sales in Asia, one of the key growth drivers and the segment increased by 35% year-to-date as we continued to pursue emerging opportunities in this region, particularly in China. Third quarter EBITDA growth for the Software segment was 13% and the EBITDA margin was 34.2%. The margin decline in the third quarters was due to an €800,000 or 46% increase in the investments made in R&D, and sales and marketing compared to previous year’s quarter. As discussed in our previous call, we expected these investments to reduce the EBITDA margin from the levels achieved in the first half of 2014. Turning to slide nine, you will see that revenue from our Medical segment shows modest growth of 4%, Medical Software revenue in Q3 decreased by 2% from the prior year due to the accelerated conversion from perpetual to annual software licenses. Although, revenue from annual software licenses now represents 29% of new license sales, compared to 7% last year, sales have not yet reached the point to offsetting the decrease of perpetual license revenue. Revenue from the direct sales of guides and implants increased by 53% compared to last year. Here again, the direct sales gain is not yet large enough to offset the combined effect of maturing knee guide business and the pending mergers of two of our largest customers, Biomet and Zimmer, which caused Q3 revenue from Medical collaborations practice to decrease by 5%. Third quarter EBITDA for the Medical segment declined to €677,000 from €1.2 million in the prior year. The EBITDA margin declined to 9.5% from [78%] (sic) 17.8% as a result of continued investments in research and development. On slide 11, you will find the performance of our Industrial Production segments. We delivered a revenue increase of 22% for the third quarter of 2014. The sales of end parts in this quarter rose 37% over last year’s period as we continued to add and expand key automotive and aerospace accounts. Sales from our two growth businesses, RapidFit and i.materialise, rose 84% in the quarter. We added five printers during the third quarter for a total of 120 machines. Our third quarter EBITDA in this segment increased from 8.9% to 9.2% despite our continued investments in our two growth businesses. Excluding these two growth businesses from the Q3 segment results, our EBITDA margin was higher at 18.8%, up from 16.3% for the prior year. The next slide, slide 11, provides some income statement highlights. Our third quarter gross margin fell 170 basis points to 61.3% from 63%, largely due to the relatively high increase in revenue from RapidFit and i.materialise and by some of our complex surgery product lines which are not yet providing corresponding contributions to our margins. Research and development spending increased sharply over last year by more than €1.1 million or 45.3%. Sales and marketing was also higher at 17.8%. The increase in both expense categories reflects our strategic decision to invest heavily in both distribution and product development this year. Other income net was slightly higher for Q3 2014 and includes income of €915,000 related to withholding tax exemptions for qualifying researchers and partial funding of R&D projects. With higher gross profits partially compensating for the increases in operating expenses, the Q3 operating profit drops by only €935,000 compared to the same quarter of last year. Financial income for the third quarter of 2014 rose to almost €2.4 million from €40,000 in the prior year, due to a foreign exchange gain on the portion of IPO proceeds kept in U.S. dollar. On slide 12, we provide you with some additional financial highlights. The biggest year-to-date changes on our balance sheet came from our June IPO, which netted us $89 million. We now have over €75 million in cash and equivalents and a very manageable debt-to-equity ratio. As for other balance sheet metrics, we have maintained good control of both inventories and receivables. Our capital spending in the third quarter of this year rose sharply to €3.5 million from the prior year’s nominal level while our cash flow from operations drop to €28,000 as a result of a lower EBITDA and increase in working capital associated with higher sales. And now turning to slide 13, I will take you through our guidance for fiscal 2014. We expect to report full year consolidated revenue between €79 million and €81 million. It is up modestly from the €77 million to €80 million range we forecasted last quarter, due to our acquisition of OrthoView, which will be included in our financial results as of October 2014. We remain in a buildup phase and intend to invest heavily in research and development and sales and marketing for the remainder of fiscal 2014 and well into fiscal 2015. Operating expenses as a percent of total revenue for the year will be a function of the base of investments we make. As we are nearing the end of 2014, we have narrowed the range of consolidated adjusted EBITDA to between €5 million and €6 million. With that overview, I will turn the call back to Peter to discuss our growth strategy.

[Peter Leys:]

Thank you, Frederic. If you could kindly turn the page to slide 14. Slide 14 is the last slide but it’s a busy one. It’s a busy one because we have had a busy quarter and because we still have lots of initiatives going on in Q4. Let’s first concentrate on the left side of the slides, which summarizes some of our operational achievements of Q3. And let’s go through it segment by segment. In our 3D Printing Software segment, we have continued to strengthen and structure our commercial relationships with 3D Printing manufacturers and their distributors. And the purpose of that is clear, we want to position ourselves even better to sell as many as possible basic versions of Magics whenever an industrial 3D printer is being brought to the markets. As part of the same strategy, still within the 3D Printing Software segment, we have now opened a new sales office in China, again basically with a -- to capturing as many as possible new contract opportunities with the many OEMs that are coming to the market in Asia. Also, our Medical segment has taken quite a few initiatives with a view to positioning itself for a new wave of growth in the near future. First, importantly, we are solidifying our existing business by consolidating our existing collaboration agreements. Proof of that, for instance, is the renewal of our agreement with Zimmer that was signed last month. Now, in the area of new product development, as you know, we reached an important milestone in our x-ray projects with the first successful use of our x-ray-based knee guide technology on a patient. So that program is fully on track. Also importantly, still within Medical, we made good progress toward commercializing our metal 3D Printing capabilities. And in the third quarter, we completed the initial test phase of the two metal printers that we took in-house. Finally within Medical, as Fried already explained in more detail, we completed the acquisition of OrthoView. Still on Q3, Industrial Production, there we continue to focus on increasing our penetration of the high-value end product markets. And a good example of the kind of transactions there that we focused on is the SCHUNK collaboration that Fried has explained in more detail earlier. If you could kindly move to the right side of the same slide, there we have set out some of the priorities that we have set out for ourselves for the remainder of this current quarter. And it start with 3D Printing Software again. Now, from the very outset, as you know, we have positioned our Magics and our Streamics products not simply as software products like a CAD program is a simple software products but as a tool that allows our customers to manage, control and automate their entire manufacturing process. In other words, our Magics and Streamics products do not only focus on files that need fixing but they aim at better engineering the entire 3D Printing process at the high end of the market. Now, as part of that product strategy, the initiatives that we are working on are all intended to further develop the process engineering sides of our products. Let me give you a specific example of initiatives that are ongoing in this quarter in that respect. In addition to the commercial agreements that we are entering into with many OEMs, we have also put into place a number of technical collaborations which provides that we developed OEM-specific build processors that will further increase the process engineering functionalities of Magics and that will actually allow Magics to not only feed information to the printer but to also receive information from the printer regarding the status of the printing process. Now, what you may expect from us in the very near future is the announcement of the launch of a number of build processors that we have developed or are developing for a number of different OEMs. Strategic initiatives in the Medical sector. First and that is obviously ongoing, we have started the integration of OrthoView into our operations. Second, as I have already explained, we continued to work hard on our x-ray project, which is fully on track. And third, we have the ambition of announcing still this year the first commercial sale of an internally 3D printed metal implant so that we can conclude at least a part of the test phase of that program. The operational priorities for Q4 in the Industrial Production side are very much in line with the achievements of Q3. There we will continue to focus on winning new, even larger end parts contracts. Also within that same segment, we are taking a number of initiatives to better position RapidFit with a view to consolidating there the automotive fixtures markets. So in summary, we do believe that our achievements during the third quarter as well as our priorities for the fourth quarter do demonstrate our commitment to execute our strategy. Simultaneously, our guidance shows our commitment to again combine the execution of our strategic plan with a solid operational and financial performance. This concludes this part of the call. We will now be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Operator, thank you for opening the Q&A session.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Troy Jensen with Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Troy Jensen:]

Congratulations on the nice results, gentlemen.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Thank you, Troy.

[Troy Jensen:]

So Peter, I agree with your opening comments. It seems like the software business and the Industrial Production stuff is just going great. Medical seems to be the one area that I just wanted to spend some time on. I know you said it was up a little bit year-over-year, kind of flat for the past three quarters here. Can you just give us a little bit of update on your largest customers in Medical? You’d mentioned about the renewed partnership with Zimmer but any more details on that would be helpful. And I have a couple of follow-ups.

[Peter Leys:]

Yeah. I mean, we’ve renewed the agreement with Zimmer that basically -- that came to an end, as was disclosed in the F-1 in October. So we have always said that the relationship was good. We’ve always said that we were convinced that this business would not be going away. So this partnership has now been fully renewed. We are not in a position, Troy, to give you much more detail about, I mean, specific clauses or pricing or volumes that are in the contract. But what I can say is that the renewal of the relationship, we consider that as a confirmation that the traditional knee guide business is a business that is going to stay with Materialise, albeit that it will not know the growth that it has known over the last few years.

[Troy Jensen:]

Okay. And how about the comments on the annual contracts? It sounds like its being well adopted. But this drag from perpetual to annual, when does that wear off and when can we start to see growth in the Medical Software segment?

[Peter Leys:]

What we can say, just to give you an idea, is that -- and those are general terms. But the pricing of an annual license in Medical Software is approximately 40% of the price of a perpetual license. So annual sales are growing significantly. But they haven’t reached the stage where they outpace the prior sales of perpetuals. Obviously, as we move into the future and we will be able to renew annuals and add new annuals on top of that, sales of Medical Software should be starting to show significant growth in the years ahead of us.

[Troy Jensen:]

When do you think that inflection is? Next year can we start to see growth -- later part of next year, can we start to see growth in the Medical or is this going to be a longer drag than that?

[Peter Leys:]

Troy, it is -- and we don’t give guidance to that for such detail. Let’s just say that the sales of annuals are gradually gaining on the former business model. But to say that it’s going to be in the next few quarters or in 2015 is a statement that we would rather not make at this stage.

[Troy Jensen:]

Okay. That’s fair. And then my last question and I will cede the floor. You mentioned direct sales of guides and implants were up 53%. I’m assuming this is going just direct to doctors. But how big is that direct segment within Medical?

[Peter Leys:]

The software represents approximately 25%. The collaboration sales represented 63% and that has been going down a bit, has been going down by 5%, as we have -- as Frederic had explained. So the remainder there, roughly 15% of the business is represented by our direct sales.

[Troy Jensen:]

Excellent. Okay. All right, guys. Keep up the good work.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Baliotti with Janney Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

[John Baliotti:]

All right. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just first housekeeping was in the prior presentations you had given us a slide on the long-term financial objectives. And I gathered since it’s not in there that there is no change to those?

[Peter Leys:]

That is correct.

[John Baliotti:]

Okay. And actually each one of you independently kind of talked about things that are going well. And as you pointed out, you absorbed increased expenses in the quarter, so I was curious. Obviously, when companies get later in the year they feel more comfortable, they tighten up the range of guidance. But the revenues you pointed out were more reflecting OrthoView but the adjusted EBITDA went up pretty nicely as well. And I’m curious; is there any particular area? Is it that you are getting -- you had a conservative view of the benefits of these investments and when they were going to come? Or how do you -- how would you put into perspective the improved adjusted EBITDA view versus the fact that you have continued to make these investments that you kind of expressed to us should have a -- create some headwinds in the near-term?

[Peter Leys:]

John, thank you for the question. I mean, as far as the benefits of these investments are concerned, maybe just to reiterate what we’ve said earlier. We expect some impact already, albeit modest in 2015. But the bulk of the benefits will come in 2016 and thereafter. The reason why we have increased our guidance on the EBITDA is that -- is double, if you want. First, as we are laying out our acceleration plan, we have learned that there are some efficiencies that we can realize with our current employee workforce. So that allows us to make some less investments than we had anticipated. But second and very importantly and Fried has already alluded to that. We want to spend wisely rather than rapidly. So some of the R&D and in particular, sales and marketing expenses that we had initially budgeted that would fall in Q3, they are not going away. We are still -- we will do them in Q4 or in Q1 of next year. So part of the good performance, if you want, on EBITDA in Q3 will basically hit. We anticipate our Q4 as we expect then quite a few expenses over the acceleration program will hit our P&L during Q4 rather than during Q3, as initially anticipated.

[John Baliotti:]

Right. But the whole year went up as well. So it doesn’t seem that as much of it would necessarily just be a timing issue. It seems like there is, maybe not on these investments themselves but just underlying core business that things are going pretty well.

[Peter Leys:]

Well, that is a fact. We are at the higher end of all of our predictions. Yes. True.

[John Baliotti:]

Okay. And Fried, just one question on OrthoView, you talked about the ability to penetrate their installed base and their doctors and hospitals. Longer term, I know you have been working on and you have achieved the ability to take 2D x-ray and create 3D images. Is that beyond the initial integration of OrthoView, is there -- with your portfolio, the ability to even enhance the way that OrthoView supports their patients and their customers?

[Fried Vancraen -:]

Well, absolutely. That is what we are aiming for that we will -- as you maybe know, x-ray imaging is the most used imaging in the hospital world and MRI and CT imaging are more expensive. So by enhancing the possibilities with x-ray imaging, we are in a position to reach more patients and to create more volume in the guide business. So in that sense, well, we really think that we can help OrthoView as an independent company, then to create more value and more sales in the future.

[John Baliotti:]

Great. Thanks. Congratulations.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Ben Hearnsberger with Stephens. Your line is now open.

[Ben Hearnsberger:]

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So, I wanted to play off of one of John’s questions. When you think about kind of the heightened level of investments you are making, we obviously saw that last quarter and this quarter; the expectation is to see that through the end of next year. But I was curious as to kind of the cadence of how that plays out, whether we see kind of a heightened level upfront and that begins to trail off near the end of next year, or is that fairly consistent throughout?

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, actually, the kind of investments that we are making is to build up a larger stuff. So it will be a relatively consistent investment in future years. But that should be offset, of course, by the accelerated revenues and accelerated growth we hope to realize by the end of next year. But especially, as we have always indicated, as of 2016 because many of those new products and also new salespersons, they need to start up. And in the startup phase, the numbers are small so their impact on the overall number is relatively limited. But when this becomes bigger in 2016, we should really start seeing the results of this.

[Ben Hearnsberger:]

Okay. Thanks. And then when you look at OrthoView, obviously one of the opportunities is within the PAC system. Can you explain how that relationship works and what that brings to the table for your existing business?

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, at this moment, Materialise -- or before the OrthoView acquisition, Materialise had very little sales relationships with the PACS companies. We had contacts with the scanner manufacturers to support our protocols for 3D scanning and so on, but we didn’t have sales relationships. And those companies play a major role in the hospital field to spread technologies. So the fact that we now can have a relation with many of them and there are requests for 3D planning in this field enables us to use them and leverage our position.

[Peter Leys:]

Hey. This is a silly comparison but let me make it anyway. These PACS contracts are very important contracts. The amounts involved are hundreds of thousands or even millions of euros, euros or dollars. And the planning tool, OrthoView, is an add-on. And it’s much like people buying a printer and then buying the Magics as an add-on and then we go in on the direct sales and inform people as to how important software is. Here is the same thing. People buy a PAC system, the hospital, as an add-on. They by the OrthoView planner, which will eventually be a 2D but also a 3D planner. And then we have our foot in the door of the hospital and we go in and we explain to the surgeons all the advantages that 2D but more particularly 3D planning can offer them.

[Ben Hearnsberger:]

That’s really helpful. Thank you. And then lastly, could you touch on kind of the business environment in your different geographical end markets? We’ve heard of some weakness in Europe. It doesn’t look like you really saw that as much. But maybe some more color there would be helpful.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, in Europe, we haven’t seen real weakness. And if there was any quarter weak, it was the first quarter. Since then we have seen serious business in our industrial base, for instance. In Asia, we also have an uptake, although we must admit that the numbers there are still smaller. So, we need to grow there in order to build substantial business. And the U.S. business has also been healthy this year and in line with our expectations. So, we don’t notice much regional differences.

[Ben Hearnsberger:]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Jonathan Shaffer with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

[Jonathan Shaffer:]

Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to ask briefly about the growth units within Industrial Production. I think it’s helpful how you guys break it out to kind of show the underlying profitability versus the growth units. It seems like the implication is that the growth units are starting to lose a little less money and that the underlying business is also increasing its profitability. Can you give a little color around how we should think about the profitability of the growth units in Q4 and going forward? A - Fried Vancraen] Well, we said that we would try to get to breakeven by the end of next year. So what we have tried to do now is, first, we improve the gross margin. These are units which are not yet mature. They are continuously improving their gross margin. And that’s the first thing we want to achieve. Now, mainly RapidFit is important here because it’s growing really rapidly and we have seen significant improvements each quarter. But we still maintain our position that we will try to get breakeven by the end of next year.

[Jonathan Shaffer:]

Understood. That’s very helpful. And then just, kind of, on the underlying strength in the core business, ex the growth units, it seems like margin was up about 250 bps year-over-year. Is that related to a shift towards more production versus prototyping amongst your customers or any other factors?

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, the production part is indeed growing. And I think our entities are performing well. We continue to realize important efficiency gains. However, the pure prototyping business is a cyclic business, as we have always indicated. And there was quite a lot of work. We have gained so much margin in a downturn in the overall market, it would absolutely have been due to exceptional efficiency gains. At this moment, there is also a good price that we can charge because the economy is doing well. But overall I think the numbers show that our production is really capable of working very efficiently.

[Jonathan Shaffer:]

That’s very helpful. Thanks a lot.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Holden Lewis of Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

[Holden Lewis:]

Thank you. Good afternoon. One piece of housekeeping here, on the P&L, you report a financial income line sort of below the operating profit, which was quite a bit bigger than what we’ve seen in the past. Can you just comment on what that financial income line is and sort of the expectations for it going forward?

[Frederic Merckx:]

Yeah. We didn’t convert all of the proceeds in euros. We kept some in U.S. dollars because we were planning to do some investments or partnerships in future. And the amount which we planned to spend in non-euro currency, we kept it in euro -- dollar, excuse me. Now, going further, we are very careful and we are reevaluating whether we should maintain that position of convert into euros.

[Holden Lewis:]

Okay. But I guess what I was trying to get a sense of and maybe I’m being obtuse, so I apologize. But that line hasn’t shown up on your P&L’s before. So I’m trying to get a sense -- maybe it was somewhere else on the P&L. I’m just trying to get a better color for what exactly that is.

[Frederic Merckx:]

So it’s a non-realized exchange gain on the dollar versus the euro.

[Holden Lewis:]

Got it. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. And then there maybe some of that continuing on going forward, or that gets plowed through in another statement somewhere at some point?

[Peter Leys:]

It’s definitely, Holden, not the intention to -- I mean to bet against any currency. So we just took the decision that as we have a number of initiatives ongoing that will require that we expense in other currencies than in euros. And since we had a lot of dollars coming in through the IPO, we just kept quite a significant portion of the IPO proceeds in U.S. dollars. And quote, unquote by chance we realized that still yet unrealized currency exchange gain. We are evaluating that position today and we may very well decide, in view of the fact that, for instance, we have done the transaction in pounds, OrthoView, that we reduce our position in dollars going forward. So that definitely has nothing to do with the core of our business. Let that be very clear.

[Holden Lewis:]

No, it’s certainly understood. Just trying to get a sense of how we should model that number going forward. I mean, obviously, it’s a significant number, so I am trying to get a sense of how we should model that in the quarters and years going forward, okay. And then can you just -- given the guidance, obviously you are suggesting that the SG&A in Q4 is going to be up appreciably from where it was in Q3, get it that maybe you had some stuff that you are deferring. But, I mean, it sounds like you are suggesting that your sort of net EPS might swing from that sort of nickel benefit to being perhaps a bit more breakeven or less? I just want to get a sense of, is that -- am I reading that correctly in terms of the implication? And then I was sort of curious about where -- what segments do you see the margins coming down or I guess the cost going up? Where would that sort of reversal have the greatest impact?

[Frederic Merckx:]

To answer your last question, it will be definitely in the Medical and in the 3D Printing Software segments. So what we’ve scheduled for Q4 is that the acceleration plan will go on full speed. That all the plans we’ve made since the IPO will really come through in the fourth quarter. And that’s why we anticipate that it will have an impact on EBITDA. And the second point is that we also anticipate to have some integration costs with the integration of the OrthoView.

[Holden Lewis:]

Okay. And where does OrthoView fall? Is that in the software or the Medical products business?

[Frederic Merckx:]

Entirely in Medical.

[Holden Lewis:]

Entirely in Medical, okay. So we should take the Medical Products segment and the industrial products segment down to kind of conform to your guidance and the 3D Software is kind not a part of that?

[Frederic Merckx:]

The 3D Printing Software and Medical, which will be affected by the increased investments.

[Holden Lewis:]

Got it, okay. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Bobby Burleson with Canaccord. Your line is now open.

[Bobby Burleson:]

I guess this one is for Peter. Just looking at the Industrial Production strength you guys are seeing and lack of weakness in Europe, I wanted to get a sense for what you think the actual correlation might be between that business and things like automotive, CapEx, or other end markets that we should be looking at in terms of proxy for that Industrial Production strength? Thanks.

[Peter Leys:]

Frankly, Bobby, our customers are spread over a number of sectors. And so it’s not that we are extremely dependent on automotive. I mean, RapidFit obviously is but Industrial Production as a whole is not. And for instance, production of end components is where we see growth there is much more in aerospace and in industrial goods and currently not as much in automotive. So it is because the spread of the customers is rather balanced there, it will obviously say that a downward swing in automotive would have a particular visible impact on our Industrial Production segment.

[Bobby Burleson:]

Okay, great. And then just on the Chinese OEMs that you mentioned, I am wondering what types of industries or customers are they selling to? I’m assuming a lot of this is within China. And I am also wondering whether or not those OEMs -- 3D Printing OEM customers of yours will be more reliant on Materialise in terms of software, given traditionally less engineering intensive companies that we’ve seen in China. Is there a bigger software opportunity with those OEMs for you versus those, say, in North America or Europe?

[Peter Leys:]

First, maybe in Europe and the U.S., the relationship with the OEMs, as I’ve explained, is double, first commercially, sell the Magics together with the printer. And secondly, we are moving, as you’ve learned through our build processor initiative. We are moving closer and closer to the OEM on a technical level. We are getting closer and closer to the machine in order to help the engineering process. And that’s where we see the growth coming from in the near future. In China, you could say that the opportunity is even larger. We could even have done more with software. You could even consider machine-controlled software. However, be careful. China is not the mature market that Europe and the U.S. are; those are emerging markets with many manufacturers engaging into the lower end, which is not our focus. And those engaging in the higher end, producing industrial printers are really just starting up. We want to be there. We want to be there as soon as they come to market, even before there. Our growth numbers there are significant but the relative numbers are today rather small. So this is really an option for future growth in the next few years rather than in the next few quarters.

[Bobby Burleson:]

Great, thanks.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Rob Stone with Cowen and Company. Your line is now open.

[Rob Stone:]

Hi, guys. I wanted to follow up on that last topic a bit more. You mentioned that the software growth from OEMs was 53% year-on-year. And I wonder if you could say how much of that was from increased activity with existing customers versus new OEMs and sort of how much potential penetration with new customers remains?

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, definitely the older players in the market have the most important position. So, the bulk of the revenues are coming from existing players. The newer players are a smaller amount or contribution to their position can be relatively larger. And it’s hard to say at this moment which of those newer systems will become winners in the future.

[Rob Stone:]

Okay. I wanted to follow up also on the growth businesses within Industrial Production. You mentioned your target continues to be to have those contributing to EBITDA by the end of next year. Gross margins are, I guess, below the mature businesses. Can you give us a sense of what kind of spread there is in margins? And as you see those businesses moving towards a contribution, is that principally going to be from gross margin improvement, what gets you there, is it just volume? Do you expect pricing to improve or overall operating efficiencies? Just some color on closing the gap to EBITDA contribution.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, for RapidFit, for instance, this is a highly technical product. It’s a kind of assembly line of fixtures. And the higher the volume, the more we can operate this assembly line in a standardized way. So it’s indeed like you suggested, the combination of the two elements. On one hand, we need certain volumes to pay back the fixed costs of the line. And volume is an important factor. Secondly, as experience and well our standardization is growing, we can also increase the margin.

[Rob Stone:]

Okay. And the question on headcount, post the OrthoView acquisition where do you expect to be on total headcount by the end of this year? And do you have a view on growth in the number of employees for next year, excluding, of course, any acquisitions?

[Frederic Merckx:]

By the end of September, we have more than 1,100 people on board for the moment. There are still some plans to hire a significant number of people even in the next quarter. But also in 2015, we really plan to increase the number of headcount. The number of people at OrthoView is quite limited, so it will have some impact but not that much. But I think by the end of 2015, I think we should be between 1,200, 1,300 people something like that.

[Rob Stone:]

Great. And my final question is on metal production within the Medical segment. You said you expect to finish testing and get to your first part by the end of this year. Can you provide any more color on sort of the number of specific applications that you are preparing, get a sense of the breadth of what’s in testing? Thanks.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Well, we are coming close to the commercial release of our different CMF products and that are the cranial plates for instance but also other smaller microplates that we are selling. And then we anticipate that in the first quarter of next year our orthopedic line of the hip implants will also start being commercially produced by Materialise itself. So it’s both orthopedic and CMF applications.

[Rob Stone:]

Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Operator:]

I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Peter Leys for any closing remarks.

[Peter Leys:]

Well, thank you all for joining the call. Thank you all for what we consider at least a very constructive discussion. As you have heard, it was a very active and as far as we were concerned, extremely successful period for Materialise. We have been making good strides with our growth strategies we believe. We will be seeing many of you at the EuroMold tradeshow later this month. We are very much looking forward to that. And as you may have learned from some press releases, we also intend to be present at a number of investor conferences still in December of this year as well is in the first quarter of next year. So there again, we are very much looking forward to the opportunity of bringing our story to the investment community at large. Thanks again for your attendance. And to most of you, see you soon. Thank you.

[Fried Vancraen:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude today’s program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.