All right, Jon Block with Stifel, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Great day, and we're gonna get back after it tomorrow. We're excited to be joined by Envista's CEO, Paul Keel. Paul very recently took over the helm on May first. So wasn't easy, but we truly appreciate the quick turnaround and the willingness to participate in the conference, and welcome, hopefully, the first year of many that we have you here. I'm gonna just start off taking the role, and I think it's probably a good place to start. So, you know, maybe if you could talk about the opportunity that you saw at Envista, what led you to take the role, the opportunities that you see in front of you, would be helpful.
All right. Well, thanks for the question, Jon, and thanks to you and Stifel for putting on the conference. You know, it's fun to see it get bigger every year, so kudos to you. So, I've been in and around this company, Envista, and the sector, oral care, now for 20 years. My first participation was in the early 2000s. I was the strategy and M&A lead for 3M's healthcare business, which is now a separate publicly traded company called Solventum, and that was at the time that Danaher was building its dental platform. So all of the assets that now comprise Envista, I looked at from an M&A perspective from 3M. After that, I had my first CEO job, which was running 3M's specialty dental business.
So now I was competing with Envista, and my appreciation for the company grew. Seeing it, first as a, you know, a competitor for the assets with Danaher, and then competing in the market with those assets. The folks who were running Envista back then, in the early 2000s, are still personal friends of mine. Although we were fierce competitors, you know, high character people, and that stuck with me. Shortly thereafter, I went to Europe, where I was running 3M's Western Europe operations. Healthcare is the biggest part of that, and oral care is a you know, substantial component of that. So the point I'm making is I've seen this business from multiple perspectives, multiple geographies across 20 years.
I got a call last fall from a couple members of the Envista board, asking, did I wanna come back to Southern California, where I was when I ran 3M's specialty dental business, and then back to oral care. You know, was not looking to make a change. I was happily running what's now a very high-performing FTSE 100 company, and Central London was a pretty decent place to be. But I thought the opportunity was too compelling to ignore, and it centered around three sort of fundamental beliefs, and I suspect a number of people in the room share these because you're at the conference. The first was the secularly attractive nature of oral care.
It's this unique industry, where it's characterized by almost boundless end-user or patient demand, you know, multiple statistics support that, coupled with a pretty bounded competitive set. So you have a $25 billion-$30 billion category that consistently, predictably grows 4%-5%, and you only have six real global players. So as a consequence, all participants in oral care do pretty well. The clinicians, dentists on average, do better than, you know, your typical healthcare provider. Specialists, on average, do better than your typical GP. In the categories in oral care, where there's distribution, maybe a third of the market, not many global distributors. They tend to do, on average, better than other healthcare distributors. And then the manufacturers. You know, all of us do pretty well.
First fundamental belief is that this is a great category, you know, one with secularly attractive dynamics. The second was knowing the business for 20 years, I knew this was a great company. It's one of two players that has material positions in all of the oral care segments. Danaher bought the right businesses, for the most part. I knew it was a good company, and then the third is, I thought it was a unique time, both in the performance of the company relative to its potential and also, you know, what's a predictable, I think, softening in the oral care market, which I've seen a couple times across my career.
I thought those combined for a unique opportunity, you know, not just for shareholder value creation, but also for customers and employees. You know, this is a mission-driven industry, and the opportunity to change people's lives as our customers do, you know, makes for a pretty gratifying experience. That's what got me on a plane from Heathrow to LAX.
Fantastic. Very helpful. I'm gonna, you know, continue to sort of ask some high-level questions. We'll get a little bit more granular over time, but, you know, you mentioned some of those statistics around dental. I think there's always a debate among investors about the long-term growth rate of the market, the health of the market, there's cyclical components, you know, within clear aligners and implants. So when we think about the long-term growth rate, are you comfortable... I, I think you might have alluded to earlier in some of your comments, 4%-5%. I, I know that's not gonna be, you know, year in, year out, but do you think that low single, low to mid-single digit is the right place to be with what your, your past experience tells you about the marketplace?
... Yeah, Jon, I do. I've worked in three of the big sectors in healthcare. I've worked in pharma, I've worked in oral care, and I've worked in, medical products. And then outside of healthcare, a few other industries. Every industry has a cyclical nature to it. Bad industries cycle down, average industries have sort of a sinusoidal pattern to them. Most healthcare segments, and dental in particular, cycles in a northeast direction. So there's a predictable, right now, softening of the dental market. It's driven by the post-sugar high from COVID, and the lull that comes from that. It's driven a little bit by the unusually high interest rate environment, and then it's driven by some country-specific exogenous factors.
The three biggest developing markets being Brazil, Russia, and China, each of them going through their own, you know, sort of turbulence. But over time, those who have been in and out of this industry, investors who've put money into it, you know, it's a predictable grower.
Okay. I said we're gonna get a little bit more granular over time, so I'll move to Envista's portfolio, and I think that's what's kept me, you know, a supporter of the stock. I just look at some of the assets, and it's number two player in implants, you know, of meaningful scale. It's a $250 million clear aligner business. It's an oligopoly in wires and brackets, and then you've gotten smaller, arguably, in some areas of dental where you might wanna be smaller, right-
Yeah
... on the equipment side of things. So if we think about Envista's portfolio relative to that 4% number that you just gave, give or take, for the dental market, are you working with a collection of assets, in your opinion, that might allow you to grow north of said dental market growth?
Yeah, I mean, I would say three things with respect to, to portfolio. The first is, this is a dynamic market. You know, you just feel it in today's agenda, seeing the different companies and the innovation that happened. So you have to continually be working on your portfolio in this market. And every couple of years, different sectors will, will be hotter than others, and you have to have the scale, both in terms of your product portfolio, portfolio, but also your geographic reach, to access those different markets that'll, that'll be hot at any time. The second thing I would say is that the core portfolio of, Envista is very good. I think objectively, it's the most complete, oral care portfolio amongst the, the major players.
But the third thing I would say is there are some segments of the market now, where we're under indexed, that, I think we'd like to have more exposure to. You know, we're very, highly indexed on clear aligners. That's helpful. We're second largest player, in that. We're well indexed on premium implants. We're less well, penetrated in value implants, in particular, in developing markets. That's a very fast growth category right now. So constantly looking at the portfolio, we'll continue to do that, adding new product lines, either organically, like we did through Spark, or M&A, like we did with our biologics business, and then trying to strengthen, our developing markets', exposure over time.
And when we think about the current portfolio, you know, what would you cite as the key growth drivers? And I don't mean that as an obvious question, like, "Well, look, Spark's growing really quickly." I just mean, there might be referencing that, but are there underlying assets that maybe investors aren't paying attention to, with some levels of improvement, that you can sort of pinpoint and say, growth opportunity or growth potential to call out?
Yeah, I mean, you saw it across today's agenda. You know, the three fastest growing parts of the market right now are clear aligners, intraoral scanning, value implants, and developing markets. Spark is a great story. I can applaud it 'cause I had nothing to do with it. Five years ago, every dental player knew that the clear aligner opportunity was gonna open up from an IP perspective. Every one of us made it a top priority. I know that, having you know led one of the competitors. But the folks who came before me at Envista, you know, built this thing. And it took a substantial commitment of attention, time, and capital.
There's a, you know, couple hundred million dollars into that, and I think that'll be a big tailwind for Envista moving forward. On the intraoral scanning side, the, you know, the company did a good acquisition two years back, with the Carestream piece. That's about intraoral scanning is about 50% penetrated now, so a lot of runway ahead there, and I've already commented on the opportunity here for value implants for us.
Okay. Now, I wanna take a step back. You know, looking at your history, you spent time as president of the oral care segment at 3M. You're now coming back into the dental environment, you know, some years later. Maybe just talk to us as what you would point to areas of dental that are, I don't know, most exciting to pursue, to capture. And then on the flip side, and I'm not saying you were there so many years ago, but what's really changed the most over that period of time?
Yeah, so I mean, it's, I'm on week four now, and it's been a fun return. My second day on the job, I was in New Orleans with you at the AAO, and then from that, I went to Barcelona for a big Envista summit. And then, you know, in New York, meeting investors this week. So a couple observations based on that, you know, rechristening, if you will. A couple of things that have changed, a couple of things that haven't changed. The clearest, most visible change is the digitization of oral care. You know, it was one of the last healthcare categories to fully embrace digitization. It really started about 20 years ago.
But you see it today, every practice, whether it's general dentistry or one of the specialties, begins with a digital X-ray and an intraoral scan. Most treatment planning now is done completely digitally, most typically with some AI support to it, and then most therapeutic or the treatment component of that has some personalization. Walking around the AAO floor, the number of 3D printing companies, the number of dental monitoring companies, the number of treatment planning companies, it's very, very exciting. So that is probably the biggest change. What hasn't changed in the business is the structural nature of the industry.
This combination of huge unmet demand, a regulated business, so it's hard to create global players, the regulatory environment being different country by country, and so you, you just have structurally a very attractive industry. And the same folks that have, have been leading it now, you know, since I was last in it, are, are still generally the, the leaders today.
Are the ones that are front and center?
Yeah.
Okay.
That's why I was so anxious to get back.
And so, you know, to sort of pull on the thread of coming back, you get the call from the board. You're coming with a fresh pair of eyes. Envista's been on that journey over the past 12-24 months. I'm just curious what you would cite as opportunities for improvement for the enterprise?
Yeah. Let me give you a balanced view of, you know, what's working and then what we're working on.
Okay.
So the things that are working, we touched on, it's the right portfolio. It's the right collection of products, and it's the right global reach, we're in generally the right markets. The second thing, being a Danaher company for the first 15 years of our lives, you know, the trains run on time. This is a very operationally competent company. Look at the balance sheet in good order, look at any of the canonical operating metrics, you know, customer service, working capital terms, cost of goods sold, all are in good order. And the customer centricity and the market positions, as you referenced, it's nice to walk into a company that has a top three position in every category. That's all working well for Envista.
A couple of things we're working on. Our biggest, most profitable business is our implants business, in particular, our premium implants, Nobel Biocare, and it is not growing in North America. Businesses with 75% gross margins, when they're growing, they have a built-in margin accretion for the enterprise. When they're contracting, it works against you from a margin perspective. Gotta get North America growing again. Second thing is, you know, we have this perverse impact from a very fast-growing clear aligner business that right now is also margin compressive because it is dilutive to the overall Envista margins. We know from studying the track record and history of Align, that this is a scale-intensive business. You get to a certain scale with a clear aligner business, it shifts from being a headwind to a tailwind.
We gotta keep this thing growing. We gotta stick to our convictions, continue to fund it, and it will turn to a big cash generator for Envista. Third thing is the organization right now. It's been a tumultuous couple of years for oral care. It's been a tumultuous 18 months for Envista. Change of CEO. We have open CFO and president roles for Nobel. It's a lot of change for an organization. Those are three of the more important leadership positions. So, we have to get the team back together, stabilized, and get this thing pointed back in the right direction.
And maybe to build on that last point and, you know, on the earnings call, we heard you talk about customers, colleagues, and operations.
Yeah.
Earlier in this conversation, you know, you talked about the customers, right? You know, or you've been spending time with customers. You mentioned being out in Barcelona. If I pivot to colleagues, there are some openings and some important ones, right? So when we think about a permanent CFO, when we think about a new leader for, for Nobel Biocare, like, any updates or rough timelines that you're willing to share with us on, on how that might play out?
Yeah, I mean, I guess that the company announced the CEO transition in the early part of Q1, and they announced my arrival in April, middle of April. So the search for those two roles couldn't really begin in earnest, you know, until they announced who was gonna be the CEO. So in the six weeks since then, I've been very encouraged by two things: by both the available talent in the market and by the number of people who see the same thing that I did. You know, who run to the opportunity and say that, you know, this collection of assets in this attractive of a category is trading at a pretty attractive multiple right now.
And then add to that the mission-driven component of what we do or what we help our customers do, and those two openings generate a lot of gravity.
Okay.
Timing-wise, you know, we have good candidates right now that are moving into the kinda final end of the process. Can we get them across the finish line? You know, we'll find that out in the weeks and months to come.
Okay, fair enough. And maybe just to continue down the road of customers, I know it's early, but you were at AAO, you were at Barcelona. I mean, the incoming that you're receiving-
Yeah.
Is there a level of excitement among some customers, that new blood, new leadership, great assets, that you're hearing from some of these customers, that gets you excited about reinvigorating the portfolio and what you have in front of you?
Yeah, I mean, the Barcelona summit, you know, last week or two weeks back, is a good example. I've been to hundreds of customer events across my career with some, you know, pretty reputable companies. I've GE, then 3M, and then Smiths is sort of my pedigree, but I've never seen anything like the Barcelona summit. There were more than 2,000 doctors from around the world who flew there. There were 110 different clinical sessions, whether they were workshop-based or lecture-based. And just the level of customer connectivity, the scientific and clinical expertise in the room, was frankly stunning to me.
And as a part of that, I talked to dozens of both our KOLs and our largest customers, and I would say three themes came through. You know, the first theme is very consistent with our peers. You know, in oral care, people mate for life. You stick with a provider, you stick with a provider. So these are folks who've been with Envista and our predecessor companies, you know, since they came out of dental school or residency. Very strong characteristic in the industry. The second is, you know, they choose us because we make them better, and so that has to be the driving force for any of the providers. We only win when the dentists and the specialists win. It was good to be reminded of that.
And then some of the macro things that we've talked about that we feel here as investors or as business leaders, our customers feel even more acutely. They say that patient traffic is about the same around the world through their clinics, but the mix of those conversations is a little bit different, and that is echoed, I think, in what we heard through the day. Some of the higher ticket procedures, a full arch implant procedure, for instance, you know, those are a little softer right now because of the financing that's sometimes involved. But the underlying patient demand is still there.
Okay.
That's kinda what I heard.
Fair enough. I've got a couple more. We talked customers, we talked colleagues. You know, there would be just operations, and looking at your history, you're certainly familiar with call it the power of continuous improvement from your time at GE and 3M. You know, I just wonder at times, do you sometimes need to see spend or investment come back into businesses before further improvement can be realized, right? Or sometimes you might risk compromising opportunities or cutting too close to the bone. That's my term. So-
Yeah
... maybe just your thoughts on, that dynamic. If there's some, maybe some investment that needs to be first, plowed back into the business before further improvement can be realized.
Yeah. So, as you said, I've been a unapologetic, continuous improvement devotee my entire career. You know, my first real job at GE, Black Belt training, 16 years at 3M with Lean Six Sigma, and then at Smiths, implementing a real enterprise-wide continuous improvement system was foundational to the steep performance improvement that, that that company saw. And it was another, very attractive piece of, of coming into Envista. I knew that that same culture, that same mindset, that same, commitment to always be a little bit better, existed in the, in the culture. Now, you know, there are a number of, perceived trade-offs that exist in, in business, and I've seen them in different parts of my career.
At one point, I led manufacturing and supply chain for 3M, this vast 200-factory, 100 distribution centers, $30 billion of annual production. A standard perceived trade-off, people would say, is, "Are we going for high customer service, or are we going for high inventory turns?" You know, as if there should be a trade-off between capital efficiency and serving customers. High-performing organizations, of course, do both. Right now, the perceived trade-off is: Are we focused on growing, or are we focused on margin expansion? Of course, one of the many things I like about oral care and Envista in particular is, if it grows, you can't help but expand the margins because enterprise margins for Envista are 60%+, and you can't spend the extra gross margin dollars that come from an incremental point of growth.
To your point, are there places where we cut too close? Absolutely. Productivity always has to be part of the playbook. You have to save wherever you can so that you can invest wherever you want. And that won't go away with Envista. We'll still be, you know, we'll throw nickels around like manhole covers, so that we can fund things like Spark moving forward.
Okay. I think importantly, you know, I wanna talk about the balance sheet. It remains in a solid position. Your prior role, I think M&A was sort of a central part to the growth algorithm. Maybe talk to your comfort in stepping into this role with a balance sheet that's solid, that gives you maybe some optionality when you get a better feel of the portfolio and any holes or investments that you wanna make. How you plan on capitalizing and putting that to use?
Yeah, I mean, it's a good spot to start from 'cause it's a highly cash generative business. It generates more cash than it consumes. In my experience, for businesses with high margins and high capital returns, the highest risk-adjusted return on any extra dollar of capital is gonna be organic. I think that'll remain central to sort of my guiding principles. That said, Danaher companies in particular, and Envista had a good track record with accretive M&A. So additional dollars that are available after funding all organic opportunities, accretive M&A will be interesting. And then across my career, capital return has always been a big piece of it.
Those of you who your funds who were investors in Smiths will know that company returned roughly 20% of its market cap to shareholders over a three-year period. So, we hope to be in a position to have surplus capital to entertain that option too.
Okay. I wanna conclude with, look, you're running the show now, and the former 2024 guidance was removed, but your predecessor's three priorities were, you know, Spark gross margins improving over time, implant growth improving, notably in North America, and then optimizing the cost structure of the business. And I think there were timelines associated with each of those, but let's take that out of the equation. You know, your thoughts on, are those still front and center? Are those still the key for the enterprise, and any further color that you wanna elaborate on any of the three?
Yeah, I mean, so I had the fortunate position to spend time with Amir before being announced, so I and I continue to spend a lot of time with him, and experienced, talented, smart guy. Those three priorities are correct and will remain priorities for Envista. That said, I think there's more that we need to do to get this business performing, you know, in line with its current capabilities and hopefully in line with its best potential. So our leadership team is going off-site on Monday to try to refine that list. But for me, I think there's more we should be doing around people and culture.
Over time, for me, that is the primary differentiator of good companies and good industries from those who really excel, is they have a high-performing and an inclusive culture, and I think there's more we can do to build that. I think for Envista, it's always been a very good operations and M&A engine. I think there's probably more we can do on R&D and new product development. Of course, that's my potty training from 3M.
Fair enough, and I'll ask one last one, and hopefully, it's fair game. I think when you look back over the past six months or so, the company's taken down its LRP, it's withdrawn its 2024 guidance. Some numbers have moved around, notably. You know, how do you view the timing of re-implementing, call it, like, the communication to the street, both on an annual basis and maybe even re-implementing longer term goals as well?
Yeah, I mean, there's sort of three phases to it. You know, day one of my debutante ball is today, coming to-
Sorry to hear that.
... some of the folks who own the shares, and then some of the folks who cover us from the sell side. You know, we know we have to give guidance for the year. That will come at the right time. I wanna collect a few more data points, so what we tell you guys, you can have some confidence is thoughtful.
Yep.
Then the famous, now infamous, medium-term guidance that we gave on April Fool's Day in 2022, I think, may have proven a tad ambitious, and at the right time, we'll get you all together for a capital markets day and revisit that.
And better elaborate on that.
Yeah.
Okay, great. We're gonna conclude there. Paul, thanks very much for your time.
Thank you, Jon.
I appreciate you making the effort to join the conference and look forward to working with you. Thank you.
We're grateful to be included. Thanks, everyone.