Good morning. This is Norma, and welcome to Sotera Health fourth quarter 2021 results call. You may find today's press release and accompanying supplemental slides in the investor section of the company's website at soterahealth.com. This webcast is being recorded, and a replay will be available in the investor section of Sotera Health's website. On the call today are Michael Petras, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Leffler, Chief Financial Officer. During the call, some of the statements that the company may make can be considered forward-looking statements. The matters addressed in these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. Please refer to Sotera Health SEC filings and the forward-looking statement slide at the beginning of this presentation for description of these risks and uncertainties.
The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please note, during today's discussion, the company will represent both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, and net leverage ratio. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures for all relevant periods may be found in the schedules attached to the company's press release and its supplemental slides. During the Q&A portion of today's call, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that we can try to give everyone an opportunity to ask questions. I will now turn the call over to Sotera's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Petras.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Sotera Health's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. I'm very pleased this morning to be reporting another quarter of double-digit revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth. This is the fifth quarter that we've reported as a public company, and we've reported double-digit top and bottom line growth in every quarter since going public in November 2020. On our last call, I remind you that Sotera Health has delivered revenue growth every year since 2005 when our tracking begins. With these positive full-year results for 2021, we have now officially extend that streak yet another year against a healthy 2020 comparable, which we grew even during the initial onset of the pandemic. Scott will provide more detail in a moment, but here are some of the highlights on our fourth quarter performance.
We reported total revenue growth of 11% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 10% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, as well as adjusted EPS of $0.23, which was a $0.14 increase over our fourth quarter of last year. Sterigenics kept up another good year with positive momentum in the fourth quarter, continuing to run near peak utilization level while the team continues to manage our facilities at optimum levels. Nordion finished the year strong with full year performance significantly outpacing its historical growth trajectory. As we expected and discussed on our last call, Nelson Labs continues to work through lingering pandemic impacts. The combination of unwinding elevated PPE testing, ongoing normalization of core testing activity, and the impact of customer supply chain disruptions contribute to a weak quarter for the segment.
More recently, pandemic related absenteeism and labor market challenges have had a negative impact on lab business as well. The Nelson Labs team has taken decisive action to counter these headwinds. Overall, Sotera Health had a good quarter and strong 2021 on a consolidated basis. That performance is also reflected in the careful management of our balance sheet as we achieve net leverage of 3.5x , representing improvement of three-quarters of a turn for the total year. This is consistent with both our near and longer-term leverage goals. Even more importantly than the financial results we're reporting today, I'm excited to detail for you a few of the countless examples how our mission, safeguarding global health, translates to making a difference in the markets where we operate and ultimately for patients. One example includes the testing of artificial skin for critical burn patients.
This testing is performed by Nelson Labs. Another example is the sterilization of components used in robotic cardiac surgeries, which is completed at the Sterigenics facilities using Nordion's Cobalt-60. We're also excited about the recent launch of the Nelson Labs Mark, which is a verification program that authenticates and confirms the legitimacy of Nelson Labs testing related to the efficacy and safety of certain products in the marketplace. The Nelson Labs Mark is a culmination of years of validation testing, and we're excited to be offering our customers and consumers a means to differentiate legitimate products from those that may not have been adequately tested. 2021 was a significant year for us in terms of executing our strategic priorities, complementing our financial performance with continued execution on organic growth initiatives and strategic M&A.
In addition, we continue to advance the rollout of our ESG strategy, where we're advancing our communication on topics that are critically important for our overall mission, as well as internal and external stakeholders. Among other elements, our ESG program is helping drive forward our actions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As an organization, we always seek to maintain a culture that supports a strong team that's collaborative and diverse in attributes as well as ideas. In addition, in 2021, we launched the Sotera Health Academy. This is a new digital thought leadership library created to better serve our customers by leveraging the knowledge and expertise of our expert advisors, which also includes expertise for our most recent acquisition, Regulatory Compliance Associates, or RCA. The Sotera Health Academy will allow our customers to access critical content to expand their knowledge base.
Our customers and many others in the industry rely on our expertise to help them navigate the increasingly complex regulatory landscape. Overall, I am very proud of the entire Sotera Health team for delivering a record year in 2021 in our first full year as a public company. Our Sotera Health team maintained their focus on our mission, safeguarding global health while meeting the needs of customers, healthcare workers, and patients. As we look forward to 2022, we'll continue our focus on our priorities, which include driving operational excellence across our businesses, investing for growth, such as adding capacity and enhancing infrastructure, in pursuit of strategic M&A, and efficiently integrating acquisitions. Earlier this morning, we provided our guidance for 2022.
For the full year 2022, our guidance is total revenues in the range of $1 billion-$1.03 billion, which represents growth of approximately 7%-11%. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $515 million-$535 million, also representing growth of approximately 7%-11%. Adjusted EPS in the range of $0.93-$0.99, representing growth of 6%-13%. We are targeting increased level investment in growth-oriented projects in 2022, reflecting a positive longer-term view of the demand environment for our products and services. We will continue with the capacity expansions that were active coming into the year. In addition, we intend to kick off two new sterilization greenfields, while continuing to invest in the major Cobalt-60 supply development projects that we announced previously.
Scott will cover the outlook in more detail, including our qualitative assumptions on trends, as well as what we currently expect relating to the keys. Now I will comment briefly on what we expect in the broader markets where we operate and how they impact our businesses. The persistent and evolving nature of the pandemic, along with its ancillary impacts on supply chain and labor market, remain an important factor coming into 2022. For most of last year, we felt those impacts were more indirectly based on how they created challenges for our customers. Recently, we're feeling the impact more significantly in terms of labor, as there have been higher levels of pandemic-related absenteeism, as well as labor market disruptions in the form of labor shortages and wage inflation.
We've often stated that our businesses are well-positioned to pass through inflation and cost pressures to maintain our margin profile, and this position has not changed. Last year, we characterized the macro environment as unsettled, but we remain cautious, cautiously optimistic. This year, I would characterize the environment in a similar manner. We are encouraged by the resilience of the markets we serve, but are cautious in the light of many unexpected turns that this pandemic has brought us. I will now turn the call over to Scott to cover the fourth quarter in more detail and comment further on our outlook.
Thanks, Michael. I'll first cover the fourth quarter highlights on a consolidated basis and then provide some insight on each of the business segments, along with updates on capital deployment and leverage. I'll end with more detail regarding our 2022 outlook. On a consolidated total company basis for the fourth quarter, revenue grew by 11.3% as compared to the fourth quarter of last year to $241 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue grew by approximately 11.5%. Adjusted EBITDA grew 10% from Q4 of 2020 to $125 million. Adjusted EBITDA margins declined by 40 basis points compared to Q4 of last year, driven entirely by margin compression within the Nelson Labs segment. I'll provide more detail on that in a moment.
Our strong operating performance, combined with our reduction in interest expense of more than $32 million, resulted in adjusted EPS of $0.23 per share, up $0.14 from Q4 of 2020. As a reminder, the interest expense reduction resulted from the repricing of our term loan and planned pay-down of debt consistent with our capital deployment strategy. Now, let's take a closer look at the segment performances. In Q4, Sterigenics delivered more than 11% revenue growth and almost 13% segment income growth over Q4 of last year. Revenue growth drivers for Q4 included organic volume and mix growth of more than 8% as well as pricing contribution of nearly 4%. There was no inorganic contribution for the quarter, and FX impact was minimal.
Compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, segment income margins expanded by more than 50 basis points, driven by higher utilization level than pricing. Sterigenics volumes remain near peak utilization levels. We continue to make meaningful investments in Sterigenics capacity and the enhancements at our North American EO facilities. For Nordion, Q4 revenue grew by 28% to $37 million compared to Q4 of 2020. Nordion segment income grew 33% to $21 million compared to the same period last year. Nordion's top and bottom line growth were driven by a 19% contribution from volume and mix. Almost 7% from pricing and a favorable 2% FX impact. Nordion's margins were up by approximately 220 basis points, driven by operating leverage on their higher sales and favorable pricing compared to Q4 of last year.
For Nelson Labs, Q4 revenue increased by 2% to $54 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, and segment income declined by approximately 13% to $20 million for the same period, same year-over-year period. As Michael mentioned, Nelson Labs is the one business unit that is experiencing challenges relating to direct and indirect impacts from the pandemic. Similar to the third quarter, Nelson Labs experienced a 10% headwind from reduced PPE testing, which was largely offset by contributions from the acquisitions of BioScience Laboratories and RCA. Favorable pricing also contributed a little over 3% to revenue, with non-PPE volumes largely flat.
Q4 of 2021 margins for Nelson Labs contracted by about 620 basis points compared to Q4 of last year, driven most significantly by the lower mix of PPE testing and margin dilution from the BioScience Laboratories and RCA acquisitions. The two acquisitions contributed approximately 190 basis points of dilution to segment income margins in Q4. We view this impact from the acquisitions as shorter term in nature while we scale up the businesses. Finally, Q4 was also affected by the increasingly challenging labor market, as referenced earlier. Now, let me provide some highlights relating to capital deployment and net leverage. Our CapEx for 2021 was $102 million, which reflected a significant acceleration of spend in Q4. Our spending was and is focused on growth initiatives, facility enhancements, and Nordion cobalt supply projects.
This is in response to both current and anticipated growth in customer demand. As of December 31, we had $107 million in cash and maintain a strong liquidity position. Our net leverage declined to 3.5x , representing a total improvement for the year of about three-quarters of a turn. As previously communicated, the combination of our recent debt paydowns and the repricing of our term loan in January resulted in a reduction in full-year interest expense from over $215 million in 2020 to about $74 million in 2021. Finally, I wanna provide additional color around our 2022 outlook. I'll start with the quantitative summary and finish with our assumptions.
For full year 2022, we are providing guidance of total revenues in the range of $1 billion-$1.03 billion, representing growth of approximately 7%-11%. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $515 million-$535 million, also representing growth of approximately 7%-11%. A tax rate applicable to adjusted net income of 29%-30%. Adjusted EPS in the range of $0.93-$0.99, representing growth of 6%-13%. A fully diluted share count in the range of 280 million shares-283 million shares on a weighted average basis. Before discussing capital expenditures, I wanted to add some color on our effective tax rate for 2022.
Some of you may recall that the 2017 tax reform provided for limitations on deductibility of interest. The tax reform at that time provided for a change in 2022 whereby deductibility would be further limited. This increasing limit on deductibility, combined with a large carry-forward of nondeductible interest from prior periods, impact how we account for taxes and result in a slightly higher tax rate in 2022. Moving on to CapEx. Our CapEx is projected in the range of $140 million-$170 million for the year. This level represents a material increase over our 2021 CapEx and an even greater increase over our historical spending levels. In 2022, we are increasing investment in a number of capacity expansion projects.
We plan to kick off two new sterilization greenfields in 2022 that are expected to come online by 2024. In addition, we expect to ramp up spend on Nordion's long-term cobalt development projects and continue to invest in more routine capacity expansions at existing Sterigenics and Nelson Labs facilities. Our portfolio of capacity expansion projects represents investments across all of our segments and in all major technologies and geographies of the company. Our elevated spend, particularly the kickoff of the two new sterilization greenfields, reflects our optimism regarding long-term customer demand for our services. As we've noted frequently in the past, we do not make these types of investments unless the demand calls for it. We also expect increased levels of spending related to our program of facility enhancements across our U.S. EO network.
Finally, we expect interest expense in 2022 to be in line with 2021. The rising interest rate environment should translate to increases in interest expense on the unhedged portion of our variable rate debt, which will offset some of the savings from debt paydown and the repricing in 2021. From a qualitative standpoint, our assumptions are as follows. We are anticipating labor market and inflationary pressures to continue through the first half of 2022, as well as some continued direct or indirect impact from ongoing COVID-related supply chain disruptions. We have not assumed any specific geopolitical risk in our projections, but are focused on anticipating and managing these types of risks to the extent we are able. As we look at the cadence of quarterly reporting, I'll comment briefly on each business unit.
Sterigenics finished 2021 with positive momentum, and we expect that to continue into 2022, with the greatest benefit from recent capacity expansions and pricing initiatives being realized in the second half of 2022. As is always the case, phasing of Nordion's performance is driven in large part by harvest and shipment schedules for Cobalt-60. Based on how we see deliveries shaping up this year, we think there will be a relatively even balance between the first half and second half of the year. Nelson Labs is expected to feel continued pressure in the first half of 2022 from the same headwinds affecting recent quarters. That being the case, we expect segment revenues to be down in the beginning of the year, with further margin deterioration to the low 30% range for early 2022.
Combined with realizing benefits from pricing and operational initiatives, we expect run rate segment income margins to return closer to more normal levels in the second half of the year. Nelson Labs and Sterigenics will both experience some lag between inflationary cost pressures in the first half of the year and the offsetting price benefits in subsequent quarters. From an FX standpoint, our guidance assumes that current rates remain in effect for the remainder of the year. Current rates would represent approximately a 1% headwind to total company revenue for the year, and this headwind is reflected in our guidance. From a capital deployment standpoint, we continue to prioritize growth initiatives and strategic acquisitions. We do not assume any acquisitions in our guidance. I know that was a lot, and we're happy to take any questions during the Q&A.
Like Michael, I want to thank all of our team for their individual and collaborative efforts, which continue to put us in a strong position for future growth. Michael, back to you.
Thank you, Scott. Before transitioning to Q&A, I'd like to address a topic on the minds of many investors. We do in our Nordion business source some of our Cobalt-60 from Russia, as we have previously disclosed. We are monitoring the current geopolitical situation and are taking appropriate action to protect the supply of Cobalt-60. At the present time, no customer orders have been affected. Our 2022 guidance is based on our current understanding of already announced sanctions, which we do not expect to have any impact on our Russian supply at this time. There is no way to predict with any certainty how the events will unfold in the short or long term.
Based on the scenarios we have looked at thus far, even if the situation were to dramatically worsen, we expect an impact of between 0%-3% of total Sotera Health 2022 revenue. To sum up as we move in the question and answer session, Sotera Health continues to be in a strong position for growth on both the top and bottom line in 2022. Overall, we feel really good about the company's current and future prospects. At this point, Norma, we'd like to open up the call for question and answers. Thank you.
As a reminder to ask a question, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Please keep your questions to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Matt Sykes with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Oh, great. Thanks, and good morning. Appreciate all the color. One just question on the guidance. The you know, EPS growth range, obviously at the bottom end of the range is below the sales growth range that you provided. Scott, I just would love to understand, you know, what factors kind of potentially drive EPS to that level and on the other side, what factors would drive you to sort of the higher end and deliver some leverage? I have one follow-up.
Sure. Thanks, Matt. You know, I think if you look at the guide in terms of the movement in adjusted EBITDA relative to the movement in revenue, you can infer from that largely flat margins at the adjusted EBITDA level. Some other factors that we're contemplating in the other drivers of adjusted net income and adjusted EPS would include a modest increase in depreciation expense, which is reflective of some of the investments that we're making. As I mentioned earlier, we're assuming relatively flat interest expense year-over-year, but we are assuming a modest increase in the tax rate applicable to adjusted net income, based really on the kind of pre-programmed change in the corporate tax environment based on the 2017 tax reform.
Okay. Flat-ish, but not for the, you know, depreciation tax rate and interest expense roughly. Is that the right way to think about it?
That's a fair interpretation, yes.
Okay. Just a follow-up, Michael, if I could g otten a lot of questions on Russia and Ukraine, obviously. You're expressing others with exposure have expressed some, you know, what sounds like, you know, more comfort or more, you know, at least a starting position of we're not expecting a significant impact. Any context you can provide, you know, potentially around the nature of the contracts and agreements that you have or the nature of the sanctions and how at this point you have a bit more confidence than maybe others might at a more superficial level, just looking at the location of that relationship? Thanks.
Yeah, Matt. Thank you. Good morning. What I would tell you is we buy cobalt from several sources around the world. Russia is one of them, and we have a long-term supply agreement with them like we do other utilities around the world. Remember, we procure it and then we transport it over to our Ottawa facility to do final processing. Based on what we see today and the talk with the authorities, our materials are not sanctioned at this point in time, and we feel that we're gonna be able to continue to move product around and get it to our customers. Obviously, it's a matter of managing some of our inventory, some of the inbound and then the outbound shipments to our customers that ultimately matter.
At this point in time, we're not impacting or projecting any impact to our financials on that. I also in my prepared remarks gave you kind of the worst case scenarios we see right now if the situation were dramatically change.
Just to be clear on that worst case scenario, I mean, what would change? It would be the materials would become sanctioned or, you know, does that include some, I don't know, logistical challenges in getting, you know, getting supplies out? What gets you to that zero-three or the high end of that zero-three?
It could be any of the above, right? It's you know, Matt, it's hard. As you know, this is an evolving situation, right? Exactly how the logistics paths are maneuvering, if you will, or evolving, also if they're sanctioned specifically on the materials or the segment, you know, the banking relationships. There's many factors that go into it. You know, I don't have great visibility onto all the sanctions and the plans, obviously, that others may be contemplating. That's basically how we looked at it. If we weren't able to get the cobalt we need, that would be the downside impact.
Understood.
And could.
Thanks so much.
Okay. Thanks, Matt.
Oh, go ahead. All right.
Nope. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean Dodge of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Yep. Thanks, good morning. On, I guess on the capacity expansions in Sterigenics, Michael, you mentioned two new sterilization greenfields. Can you give us a little bit more background on those? Where are they? Are they gonna be EO or a different technology? How much additional capacity does that add? And then anything on the permitting process or kinda regulatory process involved, you know, the lead times there, difficulty in establishing one of these facilities from scratch?
Yeah. Sean, you know, we've been in dialogue with our customers as well as the regulatory authorities, as well as people in the communities that we, you know, as we always do when we look at expansions. While we're not gonna get into specifics as to how much capacity it brings or what modality it is, we are making investments across our network on all technologies in all major geographies. We expect these greenfields to come on in the second half of 2024. The nice part, as Scott referenced, is consistent with what we've done in the past. We have significant customer expectations around this and interest, and ultimately will result in, you know, the commitments as we put the shovels in the ground. We're really optimistic about this.
The big point I want you to take away from this is the end markets continue to see value in the services we provide, and the demand is there. That's reflected in our Sterigenics performance to date, and it will be going forward as well.
Okay. I guess Scott, you had outlined some of the influences on net income for the year from the higher interest and debt. If we think about EBITDA related to these investments, is there anything that's dragging on EBITDA as you build out this new capacity before it becomes revenue producing?
No. Certainly not with respect to our 2022 guide.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Great. Thanks, Sean.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Your line is open.
Hey there. You got Jason on for Patrick. Two quick questions. First, you noted in the outlook, some embedded assumptions for things like supply chain, inflation and labor supply and elective procedure recovery rates. Maybe can you just discuss first what you're seeing there in terms of, trends for the year?
Yeah. On the recovery piece, Jason, as far as the device volumes, we're seeing continuous increases in coming back. Obviously, towards the end of the year last year, things got soft with elective procedures being shut down and Omicron starting to take in. As we think about 2022, we see a gradual improvement, similar to what we predicted last year, which were part of my comments going forward. I'm sorry, what was the other question then, Jason, as well?
Just on supply chain, and maybe inflation and labor supply.
Yeah. Yeah. On the supply chain, you know, we predicted inflation in the business. We feel very good about our ability to offset that with price and other operational improvements in the business. We see a challenging labor market, as we mentioned in our comments, clearly feeling it more in the United States than we are in other markets around the world. It's in businesses like Sterigenics and Nelson, where we've seen it. We think that we'll have some overhang of that inflation going into the first half of the year. Then as we mentioned, second half of the year, we'll be able to start to see some price and productivity to be able to offset that inflationary pressure.
Got it. That's helpful. Then just one more question. You know, as leverage continues to drop, and I think you guys get towards three times at the end of the year, you know, what level are you comfortable with? Kind of what's your updated position on M&A and inorganic growth, moving forward?
Yeah, as we stated, our long range objective was 2-4x net leverage. We're in that range today. We feel very proud of what we've been able to accomplish last year, getting us down to 3.5x . Our priority still, and always has been, to reinvest back in the business for inorganic growth. That's why you're seeing the heightened increase in acceleration around our capacity expansions. The capital's there, the customer demand is there. You know, one other point that we didn't reference in our comments here, we just completed our annual customer satisfaction survey, and again, had very high remarks across the businesses from our customers. So we're really proud of what the teams are doing day in and day out. We see the end markets being pretty strong, and we're gonna deploy capital for inorganic growth.
We'll be very thoughtful and strategic around M&A, in making sure it's on strategy and it delivers the returns that we would expect. Overall, you know, really not a major change in our capital deployment strategy from what we've outlined in the past.
Great. It's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Mishan with KeyBanc. Your line is open.
Great, thank you for taking the questions. First, guys, can you talk a little bit about your visibility towards litigation progressing in Willowbrook as expected in July, as well as your thoughts on. I know there's a proposed rulemaking on NESHAP at some point by the end of the year.
Yeah, Matt, this is Michael. Let me take that. I'll actually use this as an opportunity to hit a couple points on the EO situation. First to answering your question, the trials right now are set in Illinois for July of 2022, September of 2022 and November of 2022. So there'll be three trials right now that we see on plan for the second half of the year, if you will. We're anxious to get those done. We've got our teams very focused on our defense, and we feel good about where we're positioned today. Ultimately, it's gonna be decided in the courts. As far as you know, overall developments, we continue to move forward with our GFE enhancements.
Some of you may have noticed some of the activity towards the end of the year and then more recently, beginning of this year. At first, we'll call out New Mexico. There was a court order granted. Both parties, the attorney general and the company, both put proposals in front of a judge on how the facility ought to be monitored going forward. We were pleased with the outcome of that. The judge took an order that was consistent with our expectations, and we are moving forward with our GFE enhancements that we'll have completed here in 2022 for the Santa Teresa facility.
Also another key point, you know, although we've had a facility up and operating in Georgia for quite some time with improvements, which again are world-leading in many aspects, we are also pleased to see that recognized by the regulators, and we were granted a new environmental air permit in Atlanta, during early parts of 2022. So we're very encouraged by the things that we're doing in this area, and we're gonna continue to move forward with that strategy. As far as NESHAP, which I believe is what you're referring to, right now our current understanding is sometime in the second half, probably late second half, we will see a new NESHAP proposed rule that'll be open for public comment. So that is the current timing.
We've multiple times we've told the team here before, we'd like to have this done earlier. We would have liked to have seen it in 2018, 2019, 2020 or 2021. Right now, the government is projecting second half of 2022, and we're anxious. Just tell us the new rules, and we'll make sure we exceed the expectations there.
Okay. Excellent. This year I noticed there was a little bit of a wider reported sales growth range into the guidance than last year. I mean, not by much. I would think that, you know, 2022, you have a little bit more clarity than maybe you did early last year, maybe or maybe not. What's driving a little bit of that wider range? Kind of what encompasses kind of the low end versus the high end?
You know, Matt, my recollection is that as far as the initial guidance that we issued in the early part of 2021, it was consistent with this in terms of the kind of size of the range. We did narrow the range as we got into the second half of the year, but I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't read anything into the size of the range. This is just, I think, representative of the different variable drivers for the business. Obviously, there's a lot going on out there in the world right now, and we just wanna make sure that we're contemplating the range of factors.
Okay. Just last question on the cobalt. If there were some changes, just could you just broadly frame how, like, a disruption to that supply would impact Nordion, but then also how would it flow down to Sterigenics?
The impact would be that we can't get the cobalt that we need from Russia, right? We, you know, we have some cobalt projected in our business this year coming from Russia that we would then disperse to customers like Sterigenics. The flow would be Nordion doesn't get it and hence they won't be able to ship it to the customers. Now recognize not all of our cobalt that we get in a given year goes out in the same year. There is a timeline of processing and things of that nature to get out, and we also have other sources of cobalt, hence the range that we gave you, the 0%-3% across the whole company.
The impact would be our ability to get it out to customers such as Sterigenics or other customers that rely on Nordion.
Just to emphasize that range of 0%-3% total company impact that Michael mentioned, that would be inclusive of both the direct Nordion impact as well as any kind of downstream impact on Sterigenics.
Thank you.
Thanks, Matt.
Thanks.
Yep. Yep.
Our next question comes from Luke Sergott with Barclays. Your line is open.
Great, thanks for the questions. I just wanted to follow up here on how you guys are thinking about the device recovery. It seems that most device guys think that you know, the second half is coming in full, and your Sterigenics is at full capacity, and your CapEx expansions aren't gonna bring any new capacity online till 2024. I'm just trying to figure out where the upside to your numbers can come from, given those certain levels.
Yeah. Luke, this is Michael. A couple points. We see similar type of recoveries in the second half of the year being stronger than the first half, similar to what you're hearing from med device. Also recognize that we had several expansions come on late last year, and we also have several that are in process that'll be ramping up throughout 2022 and 2023. Then the two greenfields that you mentioned and that I referenced will be 2024 kinda second half. I would tell you that we do have some capacity coming on board that we've talked to you about in the past, where we had three that have gone live and about seven of them in process, then we got the two greenfields. That's what I would tell you to count on.
In addition to that, also recognize some of the things that we've mentioned to you multiple times in the past is about the operational excellence work going on across the company and the work that Mike and the team are doing there to drive even more efficiency and productivity out of our existing asset base. We feel confident about our ability to deliver on the revenue that we've given you based on our capacity situation. Hopefully that's helpful, Luke.
Yeah, it is. I guess on those greenfield opportunities, are you guys is that mostly EO, or is that gonna be, are you guys planning to have new technologies implemented? Just trying to stay abreast of what's on the horizon here for you.
Yeah. We haven't specifically said publicly what the investments are. What we are stating is it's gonna be in all major geographies across all technologies. That would be EO, cobalt, X-ray, E-beam. That's what we would tell you at this point in time.
All right, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Tycho Peterson with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks. You guys have touched on pricing a couple times in the prepared comments. Can you just give us a sense of the magnitude you're expecting this year versus, you know, your historical three-five, and any discoloration across the three divisions where you may see greater pricing potential?
Well, I would say, you know, really the incremental impact for 2022 obviously is inflation. As we've said, we have a high degree of confidence that we can pass through any inflationary cost pressures in the form of price. I would say when we look across our businesses, the cost pressure that we see translates to probably around 1.5%-2% of inflationary cost pressure. So when you think about incremental price in 2022, we would expect to be able to recapture that 1.5%-2% with incremental price above and beyond the historical run rate.
As far as the other part of your question in terms of which businesses would be more or less impacted by it, you know, overall, we think that each of our businesses is gonna be able to pick up whatever they feel in terms of cost pressures.
Okay. That's helpful. And then on the Russia situation, I appreciate all the color and the fact you're talking about a 0%-3% impact here. You know, you have disclosed in the K that, you know, 20% of the Cobalt-60 source comes from Russia. So I'm curious, as we kind of think about the situation, are you looking at alternative sites at this point? You know, how easy is it to switch? And do you have kind of minimum, you know, volume requirements out of the two facilities in Russia that you're, you know, beholden to, even if you switch suppliers?
Yeah, Tycho, we have a global network of cobalt suppliers. We get cobalt from Russia, Canada, China, India, Argentina, and, you know, these are longer range agreements. This isn't something you could kind of pop in the oven and get it out in 10 minutes, right? It's one of these things that has to take time to bake. The reason we signaled to you that if there was a worst case scenario was because there aren't a lot of offsets to be able to do that. We'll be able to manage to a certain degree any pressures we get based on the inventory we have and shipments coming in, but there's not a lot of excess out there.
We feel really good about where we're at today in that Nordion business and how well it's positioned for 2022 based on the, you know, long-term global supply market. Also recognize one of the things that we're doing strategically with our CapEx is cobalt supply to open up more paths for us longer term, the work we're doing with Westinghouse, the work we're doing with some of the Canadian reactors and some other investments that we haven't announced yet. I would tell you that, you know, we continue to invest in cobalt development for long range supply and also diversification of our supply base. Hopefully that's helpful.
Yeah. No, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Windley with Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks. A couple follow-up questions, one on Tycho's question on pricing. If you are getting and expect to get incremental price to capture the inflationary cost pressure that you're seeing. To what would you point then, as the headwind factors that are preventing you from seeing EBITDA margin expansion, to a similar degree as you normally would in 2022?
I would say, Dave, that there are two factors really. One is that there is a small amount of price lag between the time that we identify the inflationary cost pressure and then the time that we are able to roll out offsetting price increases. That doesn't have a longer term impact on the margin profile, but just it creates a little bit of noise in the near term. The other factor when you look at it on a business unit level is that as we said on our last quarter call and again on this one, the normalization of activity at Nelson Labs is really a few. It's gonna take a few quarters to work that out.
Obviously, we have one quarter behind us in terms of Q4 performance, but we've got a little bit more time to go still for Nelson to normalize their results, including their margin profile. That creates, on a full year basis, a little bit of lag for the total company results, even though we would expect the second half of the year run rate to look a lot better than what they're gonna see in the first half of the year.
Got it. That's a nice bridge to my second question, which is around Nelson margin. I think in prior quarters, as you began to lap the PPE headwinds, and those were bigger than were previously expected, at least, you know, on our front, you saw or we saw margins in Nelson declining from, you know, maybe 40%-43% down to closer to 40%. I think the message was that that kind of reflected those PPE headwinds. Obviously, fourth quarter was below that, and you're expecting the first half of 2022 to be well below that. What are the incremental pressures there that are taking the margin down in Nelson, you know, 1,000 basis points?
Sure. There is some amount of incremental impact even beyond what we saw in Q3 from unwinding a little bit more of PPE, of the PPE baseline that they had coming into the quarter. As I mentioned in my prepared comments, we had almost 200 basis points of margin compression in Q4 that related just to the acquisition activity, which again, is just something that we've said in the past is somewhat typical for us because our margin profile is so generous, as a starting point, really pretty much any anyone we acquire is dilutive in the very near term, and then eventually we scale them up to be closer to our margin profile.
Really the true new and incremental factor above and beyond those that we expect to impact us in the first half of the year relates to some of the new pandemic or incremental pandemic impact that Michael mentioned. Nelson Labs being our most people-heavy business had an outsized impact from Omicron in early Q1, and then other factors relating to the labor market. We're pleased with the actions that they've taken in order to respond to those pressures in the early part of Q1, but it'll take a little while to normalize that element of their operating model.
Got it. Then last one. On the acquisition comment that you made, and I think in your prepared remarks, Scott, you talked about that being a relatively short term item that would improve as you scale those businesses. Perhaps you could talk about what timeframe you're thinking about when you call that short term. Is that simply just lapping the acquisitions into organic or is it longer than that?
Well, without getting into specific timelines for specific drivers, maybe I'll just answer that by reiterating one of the comments we made, which is that by the second half of the year, we are expecting Nelson Labs run rate margin profile as a business to be back to close to what we call normal. As we said on our last call, we view quote, unquote, normal for Nelson Labs as being something that's close to the 40% segment income margin profile that they reported in Q3 of last year. The various headwinds that they're experiencing right now, including the one that you asked about, the combination of all of the normalization factors would contribute to that more normal margin profile in the second half of the year.
Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Asad Haider with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Oh, thanks. Hey, good morning. Maybe start with CapEx. Just looking at the number, comparing it to where your guidance was back at the time of the IPO, this is much higher at the time of the IPO that already had included some of growth spending that you anticipated in there. Just kinda curious if this is the new normal, and if you can help us, you know, just talk through the buckets, the maintenance versus, you know, growth CapEx and also the kinda one-time ongoing bucket of, you know, EO improvements. Has that changed now? Is that a larger number than what it was when you were first coming on as a public company?
Sure. Maybe just one anchor point for you, which is that we estimate out of the range of $140 million-$170 million of spend in 2022, we estimate that about 60% of that planned spend is gonna be directed towards growth investments. There are a number of factors that drive that higher than our historical average. Clearly, the largest by far is going to be the impact from incremental growth investments. I think we've talked in the past about the fact that capacity expansions, not all capacity expansions are created equal. The capacity expansions that we talked to you about throughout 2021 and most of the capacity expansions that we have active right now really are add-ons to existing facilities. They come at a very modest cost.
It is really a big move from our part anytime we do a greenfield. Obviously, to be launching two greenfields at the same time really hopefully sends a positive message as far as the longer-term outlook that we see. I wouldn't necessarily look at this level of spend as being representative of the long-term run rate because as you mentioned, it is reflective of the special one-time projects. We have a ramp-up in spend relating to the Nordion long-term cobalt development projects, and that spend will only continue for a few years, and the elevated level of spend relating to the EO facility enhancements. The 2022 impact of those, that specific category for EO facility enhancements will be around $30 million out of the range that we cited.
Again, the greatest emphasis is around growth investment, which is a reflection on the very strong demand environment.
Okay, just as a second question, just coming back to just supply chain issues out there, covered Russia in pretty good detail. But you obviously talk about in general, other supply chain challenges that you're seeing. Can you just give us more color on some of the risk factors that you're looking at right now for the year as it relates to supply chain outside of cobalt?
Yeah, Matt, I would say this, Michael. I would say it's mostly driven around the customers and some of their labor challenges as well. We mentioned in the past the indirect impact that we're seeing, and we still do have some of that, particularly on the Nelson Labs side, where customers are just having problems getting samples in or other projects we might be working with them on. They may be taking people and redeploying them to production jobs as they have absenteeism. We're having some moving parts around that aspect of the supply chain, you know, ability to get drivers.
We're hopeful that that gets to a more normalized level as we go into 2022, but those are examples of things that we're seeing at our customers that are impacting downstream us.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Luke Sergott with Barclays. Your line is open.
Thanks. Hey, guys, just thanks again for letting me follow up here. I just wanna follow up on the Russia and the cobalt situation. I assume that given how Nordion played out, that you guys were able to get the LNPP harvest that was planned. Is that 0%-3% total impact? Like, can you give us an idea of what was expected to be harvested this year? Or if there's any expectations on duration of the sanctions, just anything that you can give us on when you know, what's baked into guidance here?
Yeah. Luke, you know, what we've said on the guidance side is that Nordion will have another strong year coming off a strong year of 2021. Also recognize, as we've said in the past, there is some lumpiness or variability from quarter to quarter, so it's not gonna all be, you know, smooth growth every single quarter. There's ups and downs that occur with the Nordion business based on timing of harvest that you yourself are referencing. We harvest quite a bit of cobalt in 2021, you know, with the utilities and, we've got several curies in process already. What we are highlighting is 0%-3% of total Sotera Health revenue on a worst case impact if the situation gets really bad.
That is based on what we see today, and that is based on 2022 impact. Now, recognize all the cobalt we get in 2022 doesn't necessarily mean it was projected to go out the door in 2022 in revenue. There's timing aspects depending on when the harvest was, container fleets, processing. There's many aspects of that supply chain that we've walked through in the past with many of you. I would tell you the view that we're giving you is based on a 2022 outlook. We haven't done anything to think beyond that.
Okay, that's helpful. Just can you walk us through just one more time on you know, timing of when you guys harvest and then when it goes out the door usually?
Yeah. That all varies by where it's coming from in the world. If it's Argentina, if it's Canada, if it's Russia, you know, India, China, there's varying degrees based on transit lanes and timing of that. So I don't wanna get into particulars. There's no, like, one answer for everybody. It all depends on the processing and the supply chain logistics.
Okay.
It's not a straight line. I get cobalt from Russia, now I lose it in sales. That's why you're seeing some numbers that we've referenced in the past are higher levels of supply we get from cobalt any given time from Russia. That does not translate dollar for dollar in revenue impact. That's the point. That's why we wanted to make sure we gave you some general guidance of what we're seeing today based on the sanctions and if it became a worsening situation.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
Yep, great. Well, I wanna thank everyone for your time today. Hopefully you feel the excitement we have across the business. We are well positioned in Sotera Health for a strong 2022, and we continue to invest for long-term growth, all while safeguarding global health. Thanks for your time, and enjoy your day. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.