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2024 Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference

Sep 4, 2024

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

All right, welcome back. I'm Larry Biegelsen, the Medical D evice Analyst at Wells Fargo, and it is my pleasure to host this session with the Cooper Companies. With us, we have Al White, the President and CEO, and Kim Duncan, Vice President, Investor Relations and Risk Management. The format's gonna be fireside chat. If anybody has a question, please raise your hand, and we will call on you. Al, thanks so much for being here.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Sure, absolutely.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Al, let's start with the outlook for the rest of fiscal 2024. Not a lot left.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Right.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

But, you delivered a strong Q3 just last week, EPS beat on 8% organic sales growth, 25.5% operating margin. Talk about what drove the strength and how you're thinking about the sustainability into fiscal Q4.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, we just reported our fiscal Q3. Good quarter. We were pretty happy with that performance. The top line was CooperVision, our contact lens business, growing double digits back to 10%, and our fertility business growing 10%. So our kind of focus markets being strong. I think, you know, I could probably talk for an hour, if you will, about the contact lens market and the durability and growth there. But, I think if we went ten years in the future and looked back, I believe you'll see a contact lens market that's grown 6-7% annual revenue CAGR, right? And there's a number of factors that are driving that, whether it's the ongoing conversion to dailies, the growth in torics and multifocals, new wearers. That's a new thing, right?

I mean, we're seeing wearer growth right now on a global basis that we weren't seeing pre-COVID, so we've got that. We've got some specialty segments of the market that are doing well, and we've got pricing, and you probably have some questions on pricing, but, we've been able to take price, and I think it's, for us, for Cooper and also for the market, you're gonna continue to see the opportunity to take price.

S o I think a really strong growth market long term there with contact lenses, and then when I look at the fertility business, a little different story, but at the end of the day, I'd say if you went ten years in the future and looked back, you're probably gonna see a market that's gonna grow 6%-8%, maybe something like that. It's a good, healthy market that's being driven by a variety of factors right now. So yeah, it was a good quarter, and its future looks pretty bright.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Good. Glad to hear. So Al, you raised the fiscal 2024 guidance for both CooperVision and CooperSurgical. You expect CooperVision growth of 9% at the midpoint of the guidance range for Q4, I believe, which is a slight deceleration from the 10% in Q3. Is that just conservatism, especially with the comps being easier in fiscal Q4 versus Q3?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I hope it is. You know, we did a 10 there off 13 comp. We have a 10 comp in Q4. I would say the underlying market dynamics are very similar. That's what we're seeing this quarter as we did last quarter. Good, strong markets around the world. Demand for our products remains really healthy. We don't have enough supply to meet all the demand out there on some products, like, especially within the MyDay family. But I would say the market characteristics of the contact lens space, as we're moving through fiscal Q4, very similar to what we saw in Q3. So I think the eight to 10 was probably the right way to look at it. We'll see how the year plays out and finishes and what happens with different moving parts, but should be a similar quarter.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That makes sense. So you raised the EPS guidance by $0.09 at the midpoint, which was more than the $0.05 beat versus consensus in Q3. How much of the $0.04, you know, difference is deal-related accretion versus operational versus less currency?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, so we had a couple small deals that we just announced, but they're small. At the end of the day, there'd be very little from those deals that went into the fourth quarter. If I looked at FX per our guidance, it's probably about a $0.01 improvement from where we were last time. I think we've been burned enough times with FX over the last few years. We took some conservative assumptions there, even for the quarter. So, where rates sit today, I think we probably have a little bit upside from an FX perspective.

But if you pinpoint back to that question of 4%, right? You know, $0.01, maybe a little bit over when you put those factors together. The rest of it coming from, you know, we'll have stronger revenues on a sequential basis, and we should continue to see leverage through the P&L, so we should have good margins.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That's helpful. You know, sticking with CVI, the market, you said, grew 7% in calendar year Q2, which means the first half is about 6%. What's the outlook for the market in calendar year 2024? And do you see that, you know, momentum continuing, you know, as we see maybe less pricing?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Well, I'd say I'll touch on that. I'm not sure we're going to see less pricing. Yeah, I think you've got a market right now that's probably in that 6%-7% range that I was talking about earlier. I think that that's a pretty sustainable 6%-7%. Pricing is some of that, but I think you've seen the market be stronger than 6%-7%, supported by some of that pricing activity.

Now, we took pricing this past year in our fiscal Q1, which is October, November, December. We're gonna take pricing again, as our plan in our first fiscal quarter, be before competitors. So it's a little hard to comment on what competitors may or may not do with pricing, but I think you'll see a similar kind of price increase from us for next year. So that should support some decent growth for us. We'll see what the market does, but I think you'd probably see that similar growth next year.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That's helpful. You made an interesting comment to me on the Q3 call about Cooper being number one in terms of wearers. I think in terms of, and this is globally, I believe, right?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

In terms of dollar share, you're number two.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Correct.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

So what's the difference?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep, yep. So it's, it's really a fascinating thing. I was going back through it this quarter, and when you look at our strategy and what we've accomplished over the years and how we win wearers, how we win contact lens wearers, it's just been a fantastic story, right? I mean, we're the number one company. There's more people in the world wearing CooperVision contact lenses than any other company's contact lenses. That's pretty cool, right?

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Yeah, that's pretty neat.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

We're pretty proud of that, right? It continues to grow. I mean, we're taking wearers on a consistent basis, so we're actually continuing to expand that leadership. If you compare that to revenue dollars, which is how most people look at it, right? I mean, the reason that we're number two is because of our percentage of the daily market.

A daily wearer contributes quite a bit more revenues than a monthly wearer. We have more wearers, but we're skewed on the monthly side of things. That daily wearer space is so valuable. It's such a great segment, and it's growing nicely. If you look at our market share, our global market share on a revenue basis, revenue dollar basis, we're somewhere around 26%. We're about 21% of dailies. That daily percent, that 21, continues to grow.

It continues to grow, and it's lifting that 26- number up higher. So you're gonna, for a number of years here, continue to see that daily market share that we have trend ever so slightly higher each year, is the plan, right? And it'll push our total share up. The - what we've been trying to do from a strategic perspective, if you go back and look over the last several years and say: Well, why were we so successful in the monthly space? Why do we have so many wearers, right? Great products, of course, great design products.

Our competitors have great products and design products, right? But we also have a great portfolio of private label customer, customer brands that we do, and we have a really broad set of portfolio. We have the broadest SKU range out there for torics and so forth. So we've worked hard to bring that technology and that thinking into the daily space, and that's, that's working out well for us. So that's the difference between the two of them, and I think if we can be nearly as successful as we've been in the torics, multifocals, and monthly space, as we are in the dailies, the future looks bright for us.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Al, on the Q3 call, you talked about your contact launch, schedule, and pipeline being strong. So what's on tap for fiscal 2025?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Fiscal 2025, I'd say. Actually, I'd probably even go further and say maybe the next couple of years, the launch strategy would be products that you know, right? It'd be a product that's doing really well, as an example, is MyDay Energys here in the U.S. market. We know there's a lot of interest for it outside of the U.S. There's a lot of demand for it. Once we launch the product, we know we're gonna sell it, and we're gonna have success selling that.

So we need to get that product launched outside of the U.S. Clariti multifocal, the three add, very similar to the MyDay multifocal, just got launched in the U.S. We need to take that internationally. We've got the MyDay Toric expanded range, parameter set. We need to take that in markets around the world. So although it won't necessarily be anything new, where you're like, "Oh, this is brand-new product," it will be a lot of existing products that are very successful that need to be expanded around the world.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Got it, and you're wearing what, MyDay multifocal?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

MyDay multifocals. I don't know. What are you wearing? Gotta get you in some kind. Geez Louise, Larry.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Funny. Trying to break my train of thought now. Al, back to school is obviously very important for the contact lens market. What are you seeing with back to school this season?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I'll break the back to school kind of into two. When we look at our MiSight activity, our myopia control, our contact lens that reduce the progression of myopia in children, we have seen fantastic interest in that. It is a strong back-to-school season for MiSight, and I think the reason for that was we had one of our investors this morning was saying that she was putting her second child into MiSight, and we've heard that from more people, which is people saying: "Hey, I know what MiSight is now. I know what myopia is. I know how this works. I get the product. I can Google it and find it," right? The practitioners who are talking about it are more well-versed in it.

People are much more comfortable once they put one of their kids in it, and it reduces or stops the progression of myopia to put their other kids in it, so the discussion, if you will, around myopia management has definitely improved, and we've seen that on MiSight . We've taken that strategy, that real back-to-school education strategy that we deployed in the U.S. last year, that we're doing again this year, and we pushed that in different markets around the world, and we're getting really nice receptivity there also.

I would say outside of that myopia management side, the regular back-to-school season is going well. I'd say that's similar to last year. It's another good year of back to school. Yeah, I mean, as much as I hate it, I have a 17-year-old, a 19-year-old, and I know how often they stare at their stupid phones and stuff, and I hate it when I see kids everywhere doing it, but, I mean, my pocketbook likes it, right?

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Got it. And, you know, a couple of other data points on the Q3 call. One, MyDay grew 13%, only a little better than the 11% for the CVI reusables, Biofinity and Avaira. You know, on the one hand, the Biofinity Avaira franchise has been amazingly durable.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

11% growth. Biofinity was launched, I remember, gosh-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

2005/2006 , or whatever.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Long time ago.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Almost 20 years now, but CVI dailies are supposed to be more of the growth driver.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Why are we not seeing, you know, faster growth from the CVI dailies, relative to the, you know, the reusables?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Sure. I think you have to be careful looking at any individual quarter because you get some fluctuations on channel inventory or that kind of stuff that's out there. But our growth was 13%. It's going to be strong. It's going to be teens for many years in front of us, I think. So I wouldn't take too much from that. I mean, we are supply constrained and definitely in certain markets. If we had more MyDay, that number would have definitely been higher.

But the flip side is what you said. I mean, Biofinity and Avaira are great products. We saw a lot of strength in those products, in the torics, the multifocals, the toric multifocals, the extended range products, where we came off backlog on some of that stuff. So people didn't necessarily know it. I talked about it a little bit, but we did have supply constraints within our Biofinity family. We've been able to work through some of that stuff, so we were able to get a lift from some of that activity.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Got it. And, you know, another interesting comment to me on the Q3 call was you talked about applying the monthly technology to dailies to improve the margin.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Mm-hmm.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Maybe could you elaborate and remind us where you are on your, you know, CVI daily margins today, where they can go over time?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep, yep, sure. Yeah, I think the core of that was taking Biofinity, mainly our monthly strategy that's been so successful and moving that over into dailies. In order to make that successful, you have to make your manufacturing really flexible, right? You want to be able to say, "Hey, I bought a manufacturing line." These lines are huge, as you know. You've been to our plants.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Mm-hmm.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I mean, they're massive lines. You want to be able to use that line if you're producing MyDay, to be able to make MyDay spheres, torics, multifocals, Energys, whatever else you're making, and you want to be able to be really efficient, changing that over and manufacturing those products, right? So we've been able to take that technology expertise that we have, deploy that into the daily space, and that's clearly helping us. Not only is it helping us, it's standardizing those lines, meaning as we come out with new products or we do things like Avaira, as an example, can be made on a MyDay line. So the more we can standardize that, it allows us to go through these product life cycles more efficiently, right? Because we...

I mean, we've talked in the past about how much CapEx we spend, and then you see CapEx come down and go back up and come down, right? If we can put ourselves in a situation where we continue to launch products, and we're working on new products, that you're using those same manufacturing lines or more efficient manufacturing lines, right, that obviously helps with margins, reduces CapEx, pushes up free cash flow. If I look at margins, it would be margins on dailies or any of our products. It's highly dependent on the geographic mix, where we're selling those products, how they're being sold-

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Right

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

... and so forth. Right now, our daily franchise is a gross margin drag on the business. A lot more dollars coming through the P&L because of the dailies, but lower gross margins on that. We haven't given details around that, other than I would say that it's improving. Those gross margins are improving. Some of that is definitely coming from where we are, right? We spent a lot of money the last number of years expanding capacity. Every time we do turn a MyDay line on and we're producing new product, right now, we know we're going to sell all those lenses. But when we start producing those lenses, those are at fairly high cost per unit. We capitalize that, rolls through the balance sheet six months later.

As more of those lines get turned on and run, and run efficiently at full capacity, your cost per unit's coming down, that inventory is turning its way through the P&L. We're starting to see that now. So we've seen the leverage in SG&A in kind of we saw it last quarter, saw it this quarter, we'll continue to see it. We're going to start seeing some of that positive gross margin side here in the coming quarter. So that's going to help the daily margins lift the entire company.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Historically, dailies, we thought about them as a 50% gross margin. Has that changed?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

That's changed, yeah. We can push that higher now.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

We thought about kind of the monthlies, maybe the specialty lenses, seventy-ish.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep. Yep, but still a good way to look at it.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

But daily is better?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Daily is better. Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Okay.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep, and then you have, you have your product lifecycle management, I would say, is the one I would add on that, right? Because some of these products, like your legacy hydrogel lenses, that had really high margins, as those businesses continue to decline, right, you're seeing the inefficiencies creep in and come down. So those are negative margins on us as those business decline, and ultimately, those businesses decline, we'll move out of them, but we're managing through it.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That's helpful. Let's talk about myopia management. Really nice quarter in Q3, 50% growth from MiSight, 29% growth for myopia management. And, you know, what was impressive, I don't remember the exact numbers, but the sequential growth . Y ou know, was pretty, was very strong. How sustainable? What's driving, particularly the MiSight growth?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Growth. It's been 50% now for a few quarters in a row, and the sustainability of that?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, MiSight's in a really good place. You know, it took us quite a while. Obviously, we launched it when COVID started, and we had some bumps in the road, but we've established that on a global basis. I would say hindsight's 2020, right? We went probably a little broad in terms of all the optometrists that we were going to, to get certified in order to fit that, because the optometrist who's seeing three kids a month or something like that, isn't jumping behind the technology. But the higher traffic pediatric offices clearly have jumped behind that technology.

So we see it there. We see the growth there, as I was mentioning earlier, right? Siblings and so forth, getting fitted. We've seen success in some surprising places, like, to me at least, we're seeing more success in Costco, as an example. And some of our retailers and our chains are starting to show up and be more successful. So, I'm really happy with that number. The funny thing about that is, if you and I were sitting here, a couple of years ago, when we were talking about 50% growth, I would've bet you that we would be talking about China, and we're not.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Right.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

That growth is coming outside of China. China has been a struggle for us on the MiSight side of things, so if we had anything going with China, you'd be growing well north of 50%, and that's a separate issue. We can talk about that and so forth, but I'll say that if you're outside of China, the myopia space and the MiSight is doing really well.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

You know, one more myopia management question. What's giving you the confidence in that second half of calendar year 2025 approval for SightGlass?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Um.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Is there still work that needs to be done?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, so I mean, we had some great data. I thought we would get SightGlass approved on the data that we had before. The FDA is being very stringent on all their activity associated with myopia management, be it MiSight, which is approved, but extensions on MiSight, new materials and so forth. They're requiring clinical data and so forth, and they've got a standard out there that's pretty high in order to be able to receive approval.

So we're doing some more clinical work with them. We've got the breakthrough designation, so we're having good dialogue with them. The next set of clinical data and so forth, that we need to get in front of them will come, you know, this coming summer, and we'll get it in their hands and have a discussion about that, and hopefully, it's sufficient to receive approval.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

So, but summer of 2025?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Summer, fall of 2025.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Right. So what would give you confidence that if you give them... submit additional data then, that you could still have approval in the second half of calendar 2025? Seems like a short turnaround.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

You'd have to keep in mind, right, that we've been running this clinical data for years. We've submitted it. We've been back and forth with them a number of times. We got the breakthrough designation now, so we have a dedicated person, so to speak, from the FDA, who we're working with on this, and we're in pretty frequent communication with them to try to explain the data and support where we are and so forth. So, there's no guarantees on that, right? It's the FDA, but that's where we sit today.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Okay. But sounds like you're still optimistic or cautiously optimistic.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I am. I mean, we have to get glasses into the marketplace, right? Because when you want myopia management, children, you have to get glasses. You just do. We're doing well with contact lenses, and as we just said, they're growing nicely. But what we want is every single child that goes in and has myopia progressing, the optometrist has to say, "Let's put you on a product," right? That's gonna kick off insurance reimbursement, of course, right? But that's also going to get every single optometrist thinking about it. What's gonna happen then is you're gonna go down three paths with that child, right? Because basically, what you're saying with myopia control is you're putting a little dot almost in the middle of the lens that you want them to look through, right? That's great.

If they do that, and they're looking at a computer, and they're doing their homework and so forth, the eye will get trained fairly quickly, and it'll reduce or stop the progression of their myopia. But any child who comes in and that's not happening, it's probably because they're not wearing their glasses all day. The only way you're gonna get true compliance is contact lenses. The other issue that kids are gonna have is you're running around playing soccer or baseball or whatever else, you're gonna have a hard time with that. You're going to want to switch over to contact lenses for your myopia control. But we have to get glasses in there. It has to become standard of care.

And we've already seeded the market from a contact lens perspective, so whoever gets approval and gets that product in there, whether that's SightGlass, I hope, our joint venture with Essilor, or another product, that's gonna be good news for us. So I'm probably. I'm optimistic, partially because I want to be optimistic, but also because I do think with our dialogue, we've got a good chance of getting there.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

All right. CSI, IVF returned to double-digit growth in Q3. How is that sustainable?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yes. Yep, yep. The fertility market's a good market right now. Growing around the world, expanding markets. There's some markets that are doing really well right now, be it new fertility clinics, fertility clinic build-outs, improving technology and so forth. A number of things that are supporting that market. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, women delaying childbirth is arguably the biggest driver of that marketplace, and you're continuing to see that, and I mean, whether it... We see it periodically on the news, right?

Somebody comes out and says, "We need more babies," and there's so many countries where we need more children in order to keep the population stable, and fertility is there to support them, so I think you're gonna see that, right? I mean, politically, it seems like it was just the negative with Alabama and stuff. More recently, some really positive news. That would be a home run for us if we saw that, so I'm cheering for that. I mean, you get insurance reimbursement and coverage, you're just gonna open that up as an opportunity for more patients.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Do you think that's realistic? Possible?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I don't know. It's a good question. I mean, there's a number of countries around the world that have reimbursement and different forms of reimbursement for different things. I mean, there's areas within the fertility treatment, genetic testing is an example. I would say, yeah, you should reimburse that. I mean, if you have five embryos, you want to be able to rank those embryos and say, what embryo is gonna be the most likely to be successful? If you're an insurance company, I would support that, rather than having somebody go through another cycle. So we'll see. I mean, I know politically, these things kind of swing and so forth, but that's certainly a positive.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Al, I wanted to shift to fiscal 2025. You, as always, gave, you know, helpful color on the Q3 call. You know, one question you didn't answer was about the top line growth. Three years in a row, you've started, you know, with 6%-8% organic sales growth. You know, what would be the reason why you might not start this year the same?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Well, we'll see. You know, we get a couple more months from now, we'll see where we're at with the economy and so forth. I mean, I like that six to eight. We've been able to say six to eight, and then put a pretty good results and kind of progress through our fiscal year, outperforming and raising guidance. I like that. That feels good. Right now, I'd say there's not a lot to stop that, right? Our fertility business is doing well, contact lens is doing well, so we'll see. But I would expect another good year next year.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That's helpful. Currency's starting to go in your favor, so maybe 130 basis points to top line, 5%-10%, $0.05-$0.10 , I'm sorry, to EPS right now. You know, historically, you've said you'll let currency flow through to the bottom line. Is that still the case?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

That's still the case. Yeah, it was funny. I was looking at a number today when Kim and I were talking, and I was like, "Something's wrong with that." And I shot a note to our team and got a note back, and I was like: "But that still seems wrong." And then they were like, "No, currency's in our favor. You're just forgetting." Like, it's been so long that it seems like currency was a negative.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Right.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

It's nice to have it be the other way. Yeah, you know, we were conservative, where we sit today, but we've been burned on currency before. Let's see how it plays out and where it goes. But currency was probably over the last three years or something like that, on a split adjusted basis. I mean, probably $0.50-$0.60, something like that, negative. If it moves the other way, then that'd be fantastic. When we talk about guidance, and I talk about our growth, right, I talk about it, it counts the currency. Whatever that currency is going to do, and hopefully it's positive, holds where it's at, gets better, we'll let that flow through the P&L.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

That's helpful. Interest expense has been a headwind for you as rates have gone up. You know, could it be conceivable that interest expense is under $100 million next year?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

I mean, you're paying down debt-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

...and interest rates are coming down.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah. I mean, we're $109 million this year, right? I mean, we're at a point now where we're starting to generate some free cash flow. Q4 is gonna be a good free cash flow quarter. Rolling into next year should be a pretty good free cash flow year. Right now, all that is gonna go to pay down debt. Yeah, I mean, so even if you don't get any Fed moves, you're gonna be under $100 million.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

The tax rate of 15.5% next year, that doesn't assume any discrete items. I guess if you have discrete items, then it would be lower. This year, it's what? 14%, 14.5%.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, that's right. With that, the discretes are mainly tied to older issued stock options, pre, I think, 2018, where you had the tax benefit when those options get exercised. And that was disallowed starting, I think it was in 2018. So most of the options that we had issued prior to that have now been exercised. A lot of them was tied to our old CEO. And so we don't have as many discrete benefits as we used to have. That's why I think the tax rate probably does end up coming in closer to that 15.5%.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

And, I guess the punchline, you know, I don't know where consensus came out, but we're $4.09 for fiscal 2025 EPS. We're just under 12% year-over-year growth. Any reaction?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, that's, that's a good spot to be.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Okay. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

but you get a lot of color. You didn't give EPS, but-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Right.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

......not a bad spot.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, you know, we said low double-digit constant currency at OI growth. This year, I think our guidance implies kind of 18- 19, so upper teens growth. We should continue to get leverage. We should, within SG&A, we've got some opportunities in, cost of goods. We've got our top line working well. We should be able to deliver that kind of growth, and we'll see what happens with, currency. As you said, interest expense is gonna be a positive for us. It gets offset to some degree because of taxes. Question mark would be some of that currency activity.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Capital allocation, paying down debt, still doing tuck-in M&A, mainly in CSI?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, if we could find them, right? I mean, we just did a couple of small deals. Those two deals are accretive to our consolidated revenue growth, and they're accretive to our gross and operating margins on a consolidated basis. If we can find deals like that, where we're basically buying a company and we're just buying the product and putting the product into our sales force, those are highly accretive transactions for us, and they make a lot of sense. So if we can find those kind of deals, yes, otherwise, I think you'll see us pay down debt.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

The last deal you did, OBP Surgical?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

$100 million, but it was seven times trailing 12-month sales. Decent valuation, especially compared to what you typically pay.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

More of, like, low single digit-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

You know, multiple sales multiple. What was so attractive about that asset?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

I mean, we expect that asset to be growing 20%+ , like, for a number of years. I mean, it's a lighted retractor. It's a product that's very similar to a product we acquired from these same guys three years ago, and we've had a lot of success with that product. They've launched this one to a great degree of success, and once we put it in our salespeople's hands, I don't see any reason we won't be successful. So if we can buy a product that's accretive through the P&L, that's growing at those kind of rates, that's a pretty attractive deal for us.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

And the margins a bit, you know, we're really strong in Q3. You're committed to the double-digit operating income growth next year. You still have a long way to go to get back to kind of pre-COVID-

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yep

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Margins. How should we think about the path? Just consistent double-digit operating income growth?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

That's correct. Yeah. I would say that we're looking at it right now saying, "Hey, we wanna deliver consistent, low double-digit constant currency OI growth," right? Every year for a number of years here. That doesn't mean we can't outperform it. We obviously did this year. It'll be our intent to outperform it, right? But if you're modeling that and looking at it, in order to get back to those 30% operating margins, we'll do that on a very solid, consistent basis. That's our, that's our plan.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

I guess we have time left, so I'll ask it. CSI and CVI still make sense together?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

They make sense together. We've done some stuff here more recently, where it makes it a little bit more advantageous having those businesses, in my mind. You've got some things like IT, as an example, where we're spending a lot of money in two separate businesses. We've been able to kind of, behind the scenes, pull some of that together to deliver some leverage. As we go through the end of this year and next year, there's some low-hanging fruit leverage opportunities, if you will.

Because I think people sometimes are like: "Well, how are you getting leverage in these different spots?" and there's definitely the investments we've done and the returns we're getting, but, there's some lower-hanging fruit there that we're able to get our arms around, a little bit easier and a little bit faster in terms of leverage, and some of that's coming from back office stuff of these businesses.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

What would trigger you saying, "Okay, it makes sense to kind of split these two up?

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Well, I mean, we're a public company. Someone's welcome to pick up the phone and call us, right? I mean, we have some great franchises. Obviously, our fertility business is ridiculously strong, and that's highly valued as an asset that's out there. But, to me, it's a matter of I love both businesses. I think they operate well together as a company. We have them linked together. We're driving leverage. We're driving support. It allows us to move some people back and forth. We've had some really talented people on the vision side go to surgical, and same with surgical go into vision.

When I think about some of the big growth at fertility coming from key accounts and big corporate activity, we've been able to take some of our talent on the vision side and deploy that over in surgical very successfully. So to me, the way it's set up right now is a great business model, and they go really well together. I don't see that changing.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

All right. Questions? Got about a minute and a half left. All right, Al, thanks so much for being here.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Sure.

Larry Biegelsen
Senior Medical Device Equity Research Analyst, Wells Fargo

Really appreciate it.

Al White
President and CEO, The Cooper Companies

Yeah, it's always good seeing you.

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