Perrigo Company plc
Q1 2018 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 8 May 2018

[Operator:]

Good morning. My name is Justin, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Perrigo First Quarter 2018 Financial Results. Thank you. Mr. Brad Joseph, you may begin your conference.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thank you and good morning everybody, and welcome to Perrigo's first quarter 2018 earnings conference call. Hope you all had a chance to review the press release we issued earlier this morning. A copy of the release is available on our website as is the slide presentation for this call. Joining today's call are Perrigo, President and CEO Uwe Röhrhoff; and Perrigo CFO, Ron Winowiecki. I'd like to remind everybody that during this call, participants will make certain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the important information for investors and shareholders and safe harbor language regarding these statements in our press release issued this morning. In addition to the appendix for today's presentation we provided reconciliations for all non-GAAP financial measures presented. Turning to the agenda on slide three. First, Uwe will briefly discuss the appointment of Perrigo's new Chairman of the Board of Directors, followed by highlights of our first quarter financial results. Next Ron will discuss the financial results in detail, the strength of our balance sheet, and our calendar year 2018 guidance. Finally Uwe will close out the call by highlighting his 2018 priorities after, which we will open the line for questions. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Uwe.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Thank you, Brad. Good morning, everyone. Before discussing our quarterly results, I would first like to congratulate Rolf Classon on his appointment as Chairman of the Perrigo Board of Directors. Rolf's appointment illustrates Perrigo's commitment to good corporate governance by establishing a healthy rotation of right perspective at the board leadership level. I have served with Rolf on the Board of Directors at Catalent and observe firsthand his extensive leadership experience and broad industry knowledge. The Board and the management look forward to leveraging Rolf's leadership, operating experience, and industry knowledge as we continue to position Perrigo's unique portfolio of businesses to drive long-term shareholder value. Finally, the Board joins me in thanking Laurie for her leadership as Chairman over the past two years and we look forward to her continued contribution both as an independent director and member of the board audit committee. Now, let us turn to our quarterly results on slide five. I continue to be excited by our ability to provide quality affordable health care solutions around the world. I am very pleased with the progress the team has made on executing against our 2018 priorities I outlined last quarter. As a reminder these priorities are

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Thanks, Uwe. Let me start by saying that our durable business model continues to perform in dynamic end markets as illustrated by our first quarter financial results. Key performance highlights include

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Thanks, Ron. In closing, on slide 15, I would like to reiterate our top priorities for this year, first delivering on our plan. Our consumer facing businesses are on track to meet their goals and we are focused on delivering on our 2018 operating plan. Second, maintaining focus on operational execution. The core pillar of Perrigo is to focus on operational efficiency and to deliver quality products to our customers. The operational focus in our CHCI segment has led to our improved margin expectations. We continue to execute on our operational priorities across all businesses. Third, driving growth. We are investing in our businesses to innovate and compete in the market and the products where we have the right to win. The launch of Omeprazole ODT last month is a prime example of how Perrigo can capitalize on opportunities where we see white spaces in the market. We are continuing to increase growth investments for these type of projects and others in all of our segments. And four, we are working on our value creation road map which is a comprehensive process focused on strategy, growth and capital return. We are taking a holistic look at organic growth opportunities, increasing portfolio efficiencies and prioritizing inorganic opportunities and total shareholder return. Our mission of providing quality affordable healthcare products is a true benefit to society. Our durable and unique business model enables our global team to deliver affordable healthcare solutions for patients, consumers and families. I will now turn the call back over to Brad.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, Uwe. Operator, Justin, we'd like to open the call for questions now and ask that all participants please just ask one question. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your first question comes from the line of Chris Schott from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Christopher Schott:]

Thanks very much for the question. My question was really around the operating margins on the consumer business, particularly the international side. I know you touched on this in the script. But could you elaborate a little bit more what's driving that fairly dramatic step up to I think about 17% for CHC International this quarter? And then the second part of this question, help us just bridge between that number and it's a raised range with that 15.5% range in the guidance. Why is there kind of a step down we should think about from here going forward? Thanks so much.

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Hey, Chris. Sorry I interrupted your second question. Thanks for the question. If you step back and think about the strategy of the segment, we've clearly outlined since about the last year and half focusing on a core strategy of focused brands and that initiative is focused around ensuring that our capital expenditures are around regional brands where we have the right to win, where we have strong market share and we have strong pull through from a sales and commercial standpoint. So number one. Number two is we've outlined a margin improvement program that has a number of facets to it. In-sourcing initiative is a key attribute affecting gross margins, improved sales infrastructure and the like. And what we are seeing this quarter, it's interesting, is in the gross margin profile, 54% is a record and so you're seeing a trend from a gross margin standpoint that we've been articulating and discussing. We're going to see some benefits and we are seeing benefits in the gross margin profile this quarter. From an operating margin standpoint, we highlighted on the call, and to be very clear, is there is always timing of operating expenses in this business. We talked about we're going to see growth in operating expenses from a growth initiative, i.e. R&D and A&P to support the portfolio and again to support our focused brand strategy. So there's some timing in Q1. It's a little bit lower than our own expectations. Svend and his team are doing a very good job. They have some lower spending on cough/cold season. They're looking at product pull throughs and the seasonal Q2 lifestyle products, weight loss in particular are stronger. So you're going to see a higher spending in Q2, which normalizes out the portfolio. So if you think of the guidance we gave to you at the mid 15%, actually you should assume that we're going to be on that run rate for the first half of the year. So therefore you're going to have a little stronger pull through in Q1 for the timing and a little offset in Q2, purely due to timing. Again, what we're pleased about and I'll go back to the P&L structure is the pull through of gross margins you're seeing in this particular quarter.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Randall Stanicky. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Randall S. Stanicky:]

Great. Thanks, guys. Can you just comment on the CHCA business? Are you seeing any changing dynamics in the pricing trend there, particularly as you think about your retail customers versus e-commerce? That would be helpful. And the new launch contribution, what can pick that up? And then the part B of the question, Uwe, can you just talk about, is RX actively part of the strategic review, that business being potentially divested or are you now committed to it? Thanks.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Thank you. Let me start with the RX question. We are the leader in delivery of diversified extended topical healthcare solutions and leveraging our extensive product development, manufacturing and our regulatory capabilities. So going through the exercise, we are going through to actually look at all of our businesses, at all of our segments and we are focusing on exactly on what I said, what organic growth opportunities do we have, what inorganic opportunities we need to prioritize, what portfolio efficiencies we need to generate and how that all can contribute to increased shareholder return. So from that perspective, clearly any part of our business is part of the review process. And we will keep you updated once we have completed that. On the second part on the CHCA business, we are the store brand market leader here with an unmatched product breadth combined with fast moving consumer goods and supply chain capabilities. And we serve our consumers through all channels they want to purchase from. So from the perspective of pricing, we have actually seen no changes. The business is extremely durable and we operate obviously in a dynamic environment. But from that perspective, we have seen nothing that's a surprise because it's all in line with past performance.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, Randall. Next question please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Esther Rajavelu from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Esther Rajavelu:]

Hi. This is Esther Rajavelu on for Gregg Gilbert. Can you please help us think about how the new product sales of $300 million are split among the three segments?

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Yeah. I'll take that one. Thanks for the question, Esther. From a new product standpoint, we're very pleased to confirm our guidance, $300 million for the year. As you know we look at this from a portfolio standpoint. On a guidance basis, we don't distribute this within the CHCA, CHCI and RX business. We try to just keep it at a portfolio level. However we have said the following is, there are key product launches in Q4, most notably in the RX segment. ProAir is a key product that's in our guidance. Our goal is to launch it in Q4. We've given a clear articulation of EPS contribution of $0.09 a share in the period. So you can assume that it's weighted towards RX from a weighting standpoint. But again we don't give the pro rata – a specific pro rata (25

[Esther Rajavelu:]

Thank you.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Jami Rubin from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Jami Rubin:]

Thank you.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Operator, we're getting a little bit of background noise. Just saying we're getting a little bit of background noise, and see if you can find out what that is. Sorry Jamie. Go ahead.

[Jami Rubin:]

That's okay. Just, Uwe, a question for you, if you take a step back and you look at the long-term growth drivers of the CHC business in the Americas. This is a business that obviously benefited from tremendous tailwinds a decade ago or five years ago, much of which have diminished. And when you think about the business going forward, clearly the whole industry is facing some headwinds. And I think one of the biggest headwinds for you is just absence of Rx to OTC switches. So can you talk about what are – you are still conveying optimism in the 2% to 4% of this business going forward. What are the key growth drivers? And to what extent are Rx to OTC switch brands necessary to drive that growth? I know you talked about new line extensions including Omeprazole OTC. That's kind of a new opportunity for you. Maybe you could talk about that. But just really what are going to be the key growth drivers of that business going forward? And secondly, just on the RX margins which have trended lower. They are still high relative to the industry. What is a reasonable long-term outlook for the generic operating margins? Thanks very much.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Yes, from the CHC Americas business, I have to reiterate that we are the market leader here in the store brand business. We have significant market share in all of the categories we provide products on. And store brands provide a significant contribution to retailer, all of our channels earnings from that perspective. So I think we are very comfortable with where we are from that perspective, because this is more than producing a pill. This is a value proposition we present to those channels. It goes all the way from R&D to the medicine cabinet of a consumer and you have to do a lot of things very, very well to play in this business. So from a growth perspective, to make that connection, obviously in the past, Rx to OTC switches have been a driver. We have seen less recently. But there are opportunities in that business to grow. We are actually, as part of our value creation process, we are looking at the broader opportunities in that business from an organic and from an inorganic perspective that are fairly broad. And right now, we are pursuing mainly opportunities around the products we have with innovations as we have outlined as the example of Omeprazole ODT which is innovative in a dose form for the consumer. We have I think a very good pipeline of products and we will definitely keep you updated once we finish our value creation road map on an updated long-term perspective on the business. But I feel very comfortable with that business.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Then the other part on the RX margin.

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Yeah thanks, RX margins. I'll take that question. Thanks, Brad. We remain really steadfast and we said this continuously, to the strength of the diversified extended topical platform that our RX business is focused on. That's a core strategy. We've discussed many times, this business is about new products, new products, new products. And you can see from our guidance, we continue to invest in our pipeline. We are increasing R&D investments this year, as we've discussed, low to mid teens on a percentage basis in the RX business. And we feel comfortable relative to our pipeline going forward to offset the pricing dynamics. Now listen, there's always quarter-by-quarter dynamics in this business. That's something we don't, as you know, get hung up on. There may be some variations based on the timing of new product launch and the like. However, in a long-term basis we like our pipeline. We like the business strategy. We're coming at the business from a position of strength and we like the forward-looking pipeline profile this business has.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Great. Thanks, Jami. Next question please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Louise Chen from (30

[Louise Chen:]

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So wanted to ask on some of the tailwinds in the sector. So do you have any updated views with respect to the Monographs Modernization Act and when that could be passed? And also initiatives that Gottlieb has laid out to increase Rx OTC switches? Thank you.

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

We certainly like the tone at the FDA, so you're highlighting an area that at one level we can say that validates our business model. Perrigo's focus on quality affordable healthcare is wave of the future. And Gottlieb, to your commentary, has been directly focused on expanding access to OTC. That's been a core part of what he's been discussing. And then you highlighted an interesting new development that we like to highlight as well, is where does the tone become reality. That's always the question. And the Monographs Modernization Act is a good example of regulatory movement you're seeing today which has been sponsored by the CHPA, the Consumer Healthcare Association that Jeff Needham was a President of the last couple of years. And that bill has now passed the Senate committees. So you're starting to see momentum in the Senate. And remind ourselves, why is that important. Why is the Monograph Modernization Act important from an example point of view? It motivates innovation. So what it's designed to do is take a class of trade in the OTC space and motivate where innovation can take place to get protection. There is still some debates on what that protection window will look like, but assume it's 1.5 to 2 years in duration. And now we have more targets to shoot at for growth. So we're excited about the regulatory tone. You're seeing some of the tone become reality. I can't comment specifically when certain things will be ratified. It's not fair to do that. But we certainly look at, again our business model on quality affordable healthcare sitting right in the tone that you're seeing from a regulatory standpoint at this time.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks for the question, Louise. Next question, please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of David Maris from Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[David Maris:]

Good morning. As it stands now for capital deployment, where do you think the best opportunities are? And to the extent that it's CHCA, do point of care diagnostics seem to make sense? Or is it more a focused on adding brands? Thank you.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Yes. Thank you for your question. We are in the middle of the process looking at our portfolio and growth opportunities as I have laid out, organically and inorganically comprehensively. And it's a little early to comment on individual developments in certain business units. But it is fair to say that CHCA at the core of our company has an extremely high focus and we are looking here definitely as part of our project on all organic opportunities we have, and that also includes white spaces where store brand plays a role and we are not playing a significant role at this point. The process again, it's going to take a little while. We are moving forward here and we will keep you updated once we have a comprehensive conclusion of all of our business segments and the corporate portfolio strategy and we'll share that information later this fall with you.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, David. Appreciate the question. Next question please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Trucchio from Berenberg Capital. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Patrick Trucchio:]

Thanks. Good morning. My question is in regard to evolving customer experience at brick-and-mortar stores in your U.S. business. With the potential vertical integration we're seeing in your important retailers, what we're hearing is that these combined entities may seek to bend the healthcare utilization curve by encouraging members to visit clinics in their stores with the additional benefit being that foot traffic to the stores could increase. So can you comment on this potential specifically? And what if anything you've heard regarding the vertical entities perhaps looking to OTC to bend the cost curve on drug utilization. And finally, what from a technological perspective, either with the use of apps or kiosks that Perrigo can offer to help your retail customers improve both foot traffic and the in-store experience of customers once they are there? Thanks very much.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Yes. Thank you for the question. I will try to keep the answer short because I think that is something we can talk about for a long time. Number one is we obviously service all kinds, all channels and the particular channel you mentioned actually has seen a smaller decline compared to the other channels. So we're cautiously watching what everybody is doing to increase foot traffic into those channels. And obviously as we said, our strategy is to meet consumers at their point of purchase and that means any point of purchase, whether it is brick-and-mortar store, whether it is e-commerce or any other type of retailers that we serve in the United States. In Europe, the situation is a little bit different. And I make here the connection to your e-health (35

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, Pat. Next question, please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Dave Risinger from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[David R. Risinger:]

Thanks very much. Congrats on the results. I have two questions. First, at a high level, I just wanted to better understand the drivers in both the U.S. consumer healthcare and international consumer healthcare. So with respect to the U.S., could you talk about new product launch opportunities over the next year or two, what some of the key product launches are that we should be thinking about? And then in the international segment, could you just explain why the operating margin is only targeted to be about 15% for [technical difficulty] (37

[Bradley Joseph:]

Dave, you're trying to get a third question in in the backdoor.

[David R. Risinger:]

I guess we're juggling five calls this morning. Anyway, with respect to the consumer healthcare international, so to repeat, could you just talk about why the operating margin target is only 15% for the remainder of 2018 and how we should think about prospects for margin expansion beyond 2018? Thank you.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

All right. So on the CHCA business, we obviously have an extensive record on bringing new products to the market. We do that in close conclusion with consumer expectations and the experience on innovations around products that are already in the market with different finished dose forms like again Omeprazole ODT. We have a number of other products in the pipeline that we launch frequently. And generally, our new product launches in this business are around 2% to 3% of revenue. So there is, as we said, there is not one big product coming this year as a huge Rx to OTC switch. Consider this a by plan of, I would like to say it's like a string of pearls coming to the market and increasing our already large portfolio. We are not that dependent on one product. You remember we have more than 10,000 of SKUs in the market and our strength is really the breadth of our products.

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Yeah, I'll take your second question, David, on the CHC International margins. I'll start by saying we're very pleased with the margin pull through that you've been seeing kind of consistently now. You kind of look at the sequential and quarterly trends, the operating margin profile of this business continues to remain strong. In this quarter, again I'm highlighting the gross margin profile because we've had a couple of core strategies. I'm not sure investors have understood the value of those strategies. And we call it the focused brand initiative, which is really focusing on those core brands where we have the right to win. And Svend and his team continue to do a great job improving the portfolio and growing those brands that have a higher gross margin contribution. So number one at the GP level. The second initiative is in-sourcing, and we've talked about that. We're a little over halfway of our journey at this point, so there's further expansion in the in-sourcing initiative going forward, but we clearly have seen the benefits pull through the last couple quarters and this quarter in particular at the gross margin level for the in-sourcing initiative. And then there's the OpEx area. So we talk about improved infrastructure. We've talked about from a sales standpoint in particular and we've talked about how we're starting the journey from a back office standpoint. So you asked the question, first of all to correct a data point, we've updated guidance to mid 15% from the old 15%. So we've actually increased the guidance metric for the year at the adjusted operating margin level. And the reason it's not trending, I'll call it, higher in the short term has been very clear we're reinvesting back in this business. We're putting in infrastructure programs, integrated sales and operational planning systems, a key example. We're investing in the R&D infrastructure in this business. And that's why we're taking the margin expansion. We're reinvesting back in for the longer-term margin growth, which we've given a long-term view that we should be in the upper teens adjusted operating margin profile. So we're very excited about the trends to be frankly honest. The initiatives we've had in place are gaining traction. We like the plan going forward and we see the high teens adjusted operating margins in the future of this business.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks, Dave. Next question please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Annabel Samimy from Stifel. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Andrew Abriol Santos Ang:]

Hi, guys. This is Andrew for in Annabel. So my question is with the changes going on in the overall OTC consumer market such as with Proctor, Merck, Teva, how are you thinking about Perrigo's place or overall consumer strategy given your exposure in both private label in the U.S., branded OTC in Europe? And with that, how do you plan on growing from here? Thank you.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Yeah. I think that is a question that we have to answer from our position and from our position of strength. We are the market leader on store brands in the United States by far. And we continue to help our customers to generate significantly, significant margins with the products we provide. And that again includes a value chain that is rather complex and where we have to be excellent in all of the segment of the value chain all the way from product development up to the supply chain management and mass customization for those customers. So it's, as we know, it's a pretty regional business related to North America. I think that nothing here has significantly changed. In that business, we are the dominant player. And I think our performance is a testament to how well we actually manage the value chain that we control. From the standpoint of our international business, our international business other than some of those operate in Europe very much with local brands that are market leaders or one of the top three brands in their respective areas. And the way we manage our business is absolutely different from what you see from other companies. We actually try to focus on regional value proposition within European market and we leverage our access to more than 200,000 pharmacies with our sales network and we use brand extensions, product extension and regional extensions of our brands into markets as a growth platform. And I think the numbers prove that we are on a very promising way to make this business fairly successful.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thank you. Next question, please.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Dewey Steadman from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[Syed Kareem:]

Hi, guys. This is Syed Kareem in for Dewey this morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Just had a couple quick ones for you. First on your Amazon e-commerce initiatives, I know in the past you've said it's a small portion of your business. But I'm curious to know or I'm curious if you could talk about any updates on your strategies there and if the size of that piece today has changed versus where it was 90 days ago. And also my second one, if you could provide a little bit more color on your generic launch flow in the second half of the year outside of ProAir, that would be really great. Thank you.

[Uwe Röhrhoff:]

Yes. Let me start with the consumer e-commerce question. Again, our strategy is to meet our consumers wherever they want to purchase products. And obviously e-commerce here is an increasing important channel. That is not actually limited to Amazon, but Amazon is obviously here the player that dominates that market and has a commitment to grow this category. So we continue to work with any of those players levering our unmatched breadth of in our portfolio, of our turnkey solutions and of our ability to mass customize. And that is actually a strategy where all of our e commerce customers benefit from. And yes, it is true that this business model for us is growing but it's still growing from a small scale.

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Yeah, I'll take your second question regarding the product launch profile for RX. When we gave our original guidance back in March, we talked about key launches in Q4, clearly highlighting the contribution with ProAir, again $0.09 a share is in our guidance model in Q4. And we remain on track for our new products number. We have a $300 million portfolio for the year. Again, we talked about in this call, we clarified a little more detail for your models as for those of you kind of work through the P&L architecture that with those strong product launches in RX and with the scopolamine planned relaunch in Q4, you should be modeling around 35% of your net sales contribution from RX in Q4. So no new major updates and we're continuing on our pathway to achieve our overall new products plan for the year.

[Syed Kareem:]

Thank you.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks for the question. Operator, I think we have time for one more please.

[Operator:]

Your last question comes from the line of David Steinberg from Jefferies. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

[David Michael Steinberg:]

My question revolves around store brand market share. In the last 12 months, what's been your basis point gain in share versus national brands? And I know in the past years, you talked about 100% basis point gain on average depending on the economy. So what's your current, what's the current share of all units in terms of store brands? And then finally, what's your aspirational share that you think you can get to over time?

[Ron L. Winowiecki:]

Yeah. This is Ron. Thanks for the question. If you think of the store brand share, and we continue to talk about this quarter-by-quarter. In the appendix, you will see the MULO data, which we think is one of the best data points to kind of point at. Store brand continues to gain share. So unlike perhaps some of the other dialogues that previous teams talked about, it is 100 basis point improvement year-over-year, was the target going forward. The way we look at this is we are just, our business model is designed to meet consumers at their point of purchase, number one. Number two, our goal is to increase store brand share for all our business partners. And so what we do is continue to work with entire channel networks ensuring that we provide our business model the unmatched breadth of our product portfolio, our turnkey fast moving good solutions, our supply chain with for mass customization of our broad portfolio and are continuing to work with them to expand store brand share. So we're not pointed at a share point, but what we're pointed at is making our partners successful to improve their profitability and provide quality affordable healthcare solutions to consumers. That's the way we think about this business.

[Bradley Joseph:]

Thanks for the question, Dave, really appreciate it. And thanks everybody for your time today. We look forward to speaking with you over the coming weeks and months. Have a good day. Thank you.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.