Enovis - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to the Enovis's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kyle Rose, Enovis's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kyle Rose (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Marlise, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. I'm Kyle Rose, Enovis's Vice President of Investor Relations. Joining me on the call today re Matt Trerotola, Chairman and CEO, as well as Ben Berry, our Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release was issued earlier this morning and is available in the investor section of our website, enovis.com. We will be using a slide presentation in today's call, which can also be found on our website. Both the audio and the slide presentation of this call will be archived on our website later today. During the call, we'll be making some forward-looking statements about our beliefs and estimates regarding future events and results.

These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in the safe harbor language in today's earnings release and in our filings with the SEC. Actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. The forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we do not assume any obligation or intend to update them, except as required by law. With respect to any non-GAAP financial measures referenced during the call today, the accompanying reconciliation information relating to those measures can be found in our earnings press release and in the appendix of today's slide presentation. With that, let me turn it over to Matt, who will begin on slide three. Matt?

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Kyle. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. As we previously announced, we had a very productive third quarter with continued share gain, solid margin expansion, and we announced the strategic acquisition of Lima that step changes our Recon business. Let's go to slide three and talk about these highlights. We grew organically by 6% in the quarter, with 10% growth in Recon and 4% growth in P&R. That brings our year-to-date organic growth to 8%. We continued our trend of double-digit growth and share gain on the Recon side versus a strong Q3 compare. We saw a return to more normal third quarter seasonality with some summer volatility and procedure volumes from vacations, which was in line with our expectations.

We believe the elective surgery markets we serve remain healthy, with higher than normal procedural demand in 2023 overall, a trend we expect will persist through 2024 and likely 2025, as pandemic-related patient backlogs are gradually worked down. In P&R, we had another strong quarter, showing our reestablished leadership in these markets with a bit of share gain and a stable market environment. We expanded our Adjusted EBITDA margins by 80 basis points, reflecting strong gross margin expansion from productivity, mix, and the scaling of recent acquisitions. In September, we announced a definitive agreement to acquire LimaCorporate, which expands our global reach in Recon, taking that segment to about $1 billion in sales, with close to 50% exposure to the faster-growing extremities market. Overall, we remain on track for a great 2023, with strong momentum versus our strategic goals.

Digging a little deeper in Recon on slide four, we had double-digit growth in the U.S., led by 18% organic growth in hip and knee. Extremities grew 7% against a tough prior year comp of 17% in Q3 of 2022. Outside the U.S., we grew almost 12% organically in a resilient market. I'm excited about the international growth opportunity as we expand our market position with good initial traction for our industry-leading AltiVate and EMPOWR products. Importantly, we have a strong pipeline of innovation in Recon that we believe will allow us to continue to take share for many years to come. The ramp of our EMPOWR Revision knee remains in the early innings, and we also have launched an updated ARVIS 2.0 with full EMPOWR capability.

Additionally, in foot and ankle, we recently launched the Evolve34 Lapidus correction system for bunions, one of the fastest-growing market segments in the U.S. We've had terrific feedback from surgeons on all three of these great new products. Turning to slide five, I want to take a moment to remind everyone about the exciting opportunity we have to advance our business with the acquisition of Lima. I was recently in Italy and Switzerland, meeting with the Lima and Mathys leaders and teams. We're making good headway on our integration planning activities, and I came away with increased conviction and excitement about the strength of the talent and the big opportunity that we have ahead.

We have a lot of experience and track record doing acquisitions well and are following our proven EGX playbook to make sure this one gets off to a great start and delivers strong strategic impact, financial contributions, and shareholder returns. The addition of Lima represents the next step in the evolution of Enovis as we execute against our strategic goal to build a high-growth med tech innovator with a clear pathway for sustained operating margin expansion. This transaction, which is expected to close in early 2024, will reshape our mix to faster-growing, higher-margin Recon, and increase our exposure to the fastest-growing parts of the Recon market in extremities. This accelerates our progress against our long-term strategic pillars of sustainable high single-digit organic growth, continuous margin expansion, and global scale. In P&R on Slide six, our 4% organic growth reflects a healthy market environment and disciplined execution.

This business is performing in line with our strategic plan. Global bracing growth is over 4% year to date, with share gain from strong customer service, improving innovation, and MotionMD clinic conversions. We have a strong pipeline of innovation to drive additional growth, including a new OA knee brace called Roam, and the next generation of clinical electrotherapy products for our Recovery Sciences team. Gross margins in this segment expanded by 150 basis points as we continue to sustain traction on price versus cost and roll out additional EGX business system tools, which are driving notable productivity improvements. Moving to Slide seven, before I hand it over to Ben, I want to reiterate our confidence in the team's execution year to date.

We have a diverse global business, and while 2023 has thankfully been a bit more normal than recent years, it takes a lot of day-to-day execution from our team members around the world to consistently deliver the way we have. Our execution in 2023 shows our commitment and capability to create compounding shareholder value through high single-digit organic growth and continuous margin expansion. The high single-digit growth comes from our demonstrated ability to consistently grow Recon double digits, along with our stable, low to mid-single-digit P&R growth. The margin expansion comes from the structural gross margin expansion as we grow Recon faster, supplemented by EGX productivity and scale, partially offset by growth investments and in-year headwinds.

We will provide a more formal update for 2024 guidance on our fourth quarter call, but we are confident in our ability to continue to drive this compounding growth and margin formula, and also ramp up the impact of recent acquisitions. Now I'll let Ben take you through the P&L details and the guidance increase. Ben?

Ben Berry (CFO)

Thanks, Matt, and hello, everyone. I'll begin my remarks on Slide eight. We're pleased to report third quarter sales of $418 million, up 9% versus prior year and 6% organic. Our growth was fueled by strong demand for our products and solid commercial execution in both of our business segments. Additionally, our third quarter sales results include a combined 260 basis point positive contribution from foreign currency and recent acquisitions. Third quarter gross margin was 58.2%, up 140 basis points year-over-year. The growth was driven by leverage from higher sales, strong mix, and cost discipline. We continue to leverage our EGX business system to stabilize and drive productivity in the supply chain, and the results continue to read through in gross margin.

Adjusted EBITDA grew 14%, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.7%, up 80 basis points versus prior year. This growth was driven by gross margin expansion and partially offset by growth investments in R&D and dilution from recent acquisitions. Q3 results build on a strong first half, resulting in year-to-date adjusted EBITDA margins up 100 basis points versus the prior year. Third quarter effective tax rate was 19%. This is compared to 6% last year, which included benefits from one-time items that significantly lowered the rate. Interest expense was $6 million for the quarter versus $5 million in 2022. Overall, we produced strong adjusted earnings per share of $0.56, or 12% underlying earnings growth after normalizing for the tax and interest impacts from the prior year.

We're extremely pleased with these results and the momentum we've built thus far in 2023. I want to congratulate all the Enovis team worldwide in delivering another strong quarter. Let's move to Slide nine. Considering our Q3 performance, we are raising our organic sales growth outlook for the year to 7.4%-7.6%, versus the previous guidance of 7%-7.5%. We are seeing consistent performance in both of our business segments and are excited about the momentum we are creating as we shape the business and build on our commercial execution efforts. We expect full-year sales to be roughly $1.7 billion, with approximately 1 point of additional growth from recent acquisitions. For the year, based on the latest rates, we expect foreign currency impact on sales to be relatively flat.

We are raising the bottom end of our Adjusted EBITDA range to $264 million-$270 million, reflecting our solid Q3 performance. We're updating our interest outlook to approximately $22 million and lowering our estimated tax rate range to 19%-19.5%.

...Based on our strong performance in the first nine months and these adjustments, we now expect our adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.30-$2.40, versus our previously guided $2.22-$2.36. I'd like to spend the next few minutes discussing recent steps we've taken to optimize our balance sheet in a challenging capital markets backdrop. On slide 10, we have solidified and secured our financing for the LimaCorporate acquisition. We will maintain our existing revolving credit facility and add a new term loan at our current interest rates. Additionally, we've completed a convertible debt offering at a 3.875% fixed rate. Given the challenging capital market conditions, we believe we have put ourselves in a strong position to drive and create value from this acquisition.

Our effective interest rate of the company will be around 5.25%-5.75%, based on current rates. This will allow us to deliver accretive earnings in year one, with meaningful accretion in year two and beyond. We will also have the flexibility to progress our integration plans and quickly position ourselves for more M&A in the future as the business scales. To summarize, on slide 11, we've had another strong quarter, leading us to again raise our full year guidance. We grew 8% sales per day in the first nine months of the year, and we remain confident in our strategy and our capability to build a sustainable, high single-digit growth company. We took another step forward in expanding our margins, and we continue to execute on our clear plan for continued margin growth.

We continue to accelerate the company through M&A and have demonstrated strong execution of recent deals. We are very excited to welcome the Lima team into the Enovis family in early 2024 and look forward to creating better together. Now we'll move to Q&A. Marlise, please open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star and One on your touchtone phone. And if you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star, then Two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question comes from Vik Chopra from Wells Fargo. Vik, please go ahead.

Vik Chopra (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, and thanks so much for taking the questions, and congrats on a nice print. Just two questions to me. You know, Matt, maybe first one for you. GLP-1s remain front and center for investors, and, you know, it, it would be remiss of me if I didn't ask you about this. So I just want to get your updated thoughts on how you're thinking about the impact of GLP-1s on ortho on ortho procedures, and then I had a follow-up question, please. Thanks.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. Hey, Vik. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the kind words. Let me address your first question and let you ask the second. You know, certainly, you know, we're paying close attention to all the discussion about GLP-1 and the potential impacts. Yeah, as we've taken a look at it, so far, really, you know, the demonstrated impact from GLP-1 is on obesity and the path of obesity and being able to reduce obesity.

And when we look at our portfolio, and we look at the portion of the portfolio that might be, you know, have some headwinds from less obesity versus the portion that might have some tailwinds from less obesity, we would see it as, you know, somewhere between neutral and potentially a small positive in terms of the kind of impact that GLP-1 can have on obesity. So, you know, that's kind of how we view it at this point, based on the demonstrated impacts that are out there. You know, we're gonna continue to monitor the situation, but, you know, in our business, in our recon business, we get most of our growth from share gain, not from the market growth itself.

Even if there was a little bit of impact on the market growth in recon, our diversification, as well as, you know, our small share position in hip and knee, would be a good thing in terms of enabling us to still drive very strong growth.

Vik Chopra (Equity Research Analyst)

Great, thanks for that comprehensive answer. Then my second question was just on the backlog in orthopedic procedures. You know, we're sort of coming up towards the end of 2023. I'm just curious as to how you think about the backlog, heading into 2024. You know, do you expect to work through that backlog next year, or do you expect that to be a tailwind for, some time? Thanks so much for taking the questions.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Vik. You know, again, I think the way we look at this backlog topic is that if you look at the overall industry growth since 2019, there's still a year or two missing, right, in the math, and so, you know, of growth. And so that really gives an opportunity. Even with, you know, some of the tailwind this year that came from some backlog, you know, we still see the opportunity, you know, for a little bit of tailwind in each of the coming years, you know, if people, you know, create the capacity and the staffing to be able to work off some of that backlog.

So we're pleased that this year has had a little bit of tailwind in it, particularly in the first half of the year, in terms of recon procedures. You know, we would expect there's a real possibility to have that tailwind continue for the next couple of years. But obviously, it's gonna be kind of situational on a year-to-year basis, and yeah, we'll share the assumptions that we're making when we give our guidance.

Operator (participant)

... Okay, we'll proceed with our next question, which is from Jeff Johnson from Baird. Jeff, please go ahead.

Jeffrey Johnson (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter. Appreciate all the commentary. I guess, Matt or Ben, just on the extremities business, up 7%, I know it came up against that very top 17% comp. Just would like to hear what you're seeing maybe from a competitive standpoint. I know a couple of your competitors have launched some new shoulder products here recently. So what, what are you seeing out in the field and your confidence in maybe getting that number, I think comp ease a little bit over the next few quarters, although stay pretty high. Do you think that gets back to a double-digit number, or are we kind of in this upper single digit range for the foreseeable future? Thanks.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Appreciate the question. You know, we continue to be very confident in our leadership in shoulder. You know, we've shown that leadership for a long time, and we've been able to you know, outgrow the market based on the you know, the great AltiVate shoulder and all the different innovation that we've been bringing through. You know, certainly in the quarter, you know, the 7% is more like you know, in the neighborhood of market growth versus the above market rate growth that is normal. But then if you stack it on top of 17% last year, then you'd see kind of two years of comfortably above market growth.

So we continue to be confident in our leadership there, even in a little bit more competitive field. We still have an advantage product and a tremendous innovation pipeline. Yeah, we've got a couple of quarters of strong comps starting this quarter. And at the same time, we've got some really exciting innovations coming through as we work our way through the first half of next year. So we feel comfortable that we're going to continue to show, you know, consistent above market growth in shoulder, you know, over the medium term here.

Jeffrey Johnson (Senior Research Analyst)

All right. That's helpful. Thanks. And then you mentioned summer seasonality. I think that's pretty comp consistent, I'm sorry, with everything we've heard from others as well. But I'm sure you don't want to give month-by-month trends, but maybe just any thoughts from that summer seasonality, how September and now into October has trended. Are you seeing sign- kind of some normalization of that seasonality and a recovery in volumes? Just kind of, you know, your, your-

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah

Jeffrey Johnson (Senior Research Analyst)

... update on recent trend line.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, sure, Jeff. Yeah, I mean, again, you know, it's sort of a new kind of summer seasonality set in last year with more vacations than normal, as sort of the new normal, and that, you know, repeated itself this year, you know, even probably a little bit heavier in July this year than last year. So the first couple of months of the summer definitely were, you know, slower. September was a good, healthy step forward, and October is another good, healthy step forward.

So we're expecting sequential acceleration in Q4 versus Q3, and a pretty normal run to the finish, you know, for Recon as we head through the coming months, that'll, you know, set things up well for how things roll over into next year.

Jeffrey Johnson (Senior Research Analyst)

Awesome. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take a question from Young Li from Jefferies. Young, please go ahead.

Young Li (Senior VP and Equity Research Analyst)

All right, thank you so much for taking our question. I guess to start, maybe wanted to hear a little bit about the early feedback from, you know, your PM team, Lima customers, Enovis customers on the deal. What do they like about it? Anything that they're cautious of? You know, in general, just how excited are they about the deal?

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, thanks for the question, Young. You know, we've certainly we've spent a lot of time getting out and getting feedback from customers and the channel in terms of that really important combination in our recon business, and a lot of very positive feedback. I mean, if you look at the Lima customers and channel, for example, here in the U.S., you know, they've had kind of some limitations on how much breadth of product line they've had. They've had some great products, but they've had some limitations on how much breadth of product line they've had. And so that's a great real positive opportunity. Same goes for, you know, outside the U.S..

Lima has some, you know, tremendous, you know, strengths, in, in certain areas of the product line, but also has had some, some weaker areas that we will fill in very quickly. And so again, the customers outside the U.S. and the channel outside the U.S. are excited about the opportunity. And, and, you know, on, on the Enovis side, the, you know, there's, there's some technologies that'll come with Lima that our customers are, are quite excited about, as, as well. So I, I'm, I'm very pleased by the feedback we've gotten from the marketplace, and really excited, about, about the team, you know, the time I've been able to spend with, with the Lima team and that our other, other, other leaders have been able to spend with the Lima team.

Just a lot of great talent there and a lot of excitement and energy about joining our company.

Young Li (Senior VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that's great. I guess, maybe, just to follow up on P&R, you know, doesn't get enough attention sometimes, but pretty strong growth in the third quarter and year to date off of pretty tough comps. Sounds like, you know, the market growth drove a lot of that. But just wanted to hear a little bit about some of the other key drivers of growth in the third quarter. Any key products to call out and the sustainability of that mid-single-digit growth rate going forward, especially against elevated comps. And, you know, also maybe on gross margins, if you can comment on it. I mean, you know, pretty strong expansion, 150 basis points, driven by a lot of the things you talked about before.

You know, where are you on the P&R gross margin extension curve? And,

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, let me, yeah, thanks, Young. Let me talk a little bit about the growth, and I'll let Ben talk a little bit about the, the gross margin there. We're certainly pleased with the, the consistent, you know, 4% growth. You know, as a leader there, we've consistently said, you know, we don't, we don't need to outgrow the market by a lot. You know, our strategic plan is to outgrow the market, you know, by, by a little bit, that, that gets us, into that kind of low to mid-single digit growth range for, for P&R. And so, certainly pleased with the consistent execution there. And, it is, you know, above market growth, but it's, you know, it's a healthier market environment than in recent years, and, and then we've also driven nice above market growth.

You know, really, some of that we've had, you know, very nice price performance there that is helping in terms of the growth. You know, second, our supply chain is very strong. A lot of great EGX work in the supply chain, and so the consistency of our delivery to customers there in a demanding market has been very strong, and that's helping us as well. You know, third, you know, we've come up the curve a little bit on innovation in our PNR businesses, and that's helping the team in terms of giving them some, you know, some good new products to sell. And then fourth, we continue to demonstrate, you know, some growth through MotionMD clinic conversions.

You know, that is a piece of our share gain in any given year. And so that formula is consistently working out and getting us, you know, into the kind of growth range that we need from this business. And we're confident that as we go forward, we have more innovation coming through at the same time as a little bit of that price, so will start to roll off. And so that should be able to, you know, keep us, you know, in the low to mid-single digit growth range for P&R on a sustainable forward path.

Ben Berry (CFO)

Yeah, Young, on gross margins, I mean, as Matt indicated, we are taking some ground on price versus cost, in terms of our ability and kind of our capabilities now to continue to try to manage through some of the inflationary impacts that we've had. We're seeing some of those pressures roll off a little bit. I mean, we're getting improved freight rates, as we kind of work through the supply chain. That's helped us a little bit. The other thing is we've got some positive mix that's happening within the P&R business itself. Some of our fastest-growing parts of that business actually are carrying higher gross margins. So we're getting the benefit of that on top of some of the kind of price cost, you know, efforts that we've done to continue to drive improvement.

So overall, you put those together with all the EGX work that's constantly in kind of our view. We've seen really strong performance there and kind of feel really good about the progress on gross margin and P&R.

Young Li (Senior VP and Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the company and the advisor.

Ben Berry (CFO)

Thanks, Young.

Operator (participant)

We'll take a question now from Bill Plovanic from Canaccord. Bill, please go ahead.

Bill Plovanic (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I'm gonna focus on strategy. So in terms of M&A, there's a lot of moving parts going on with interest rates up and valuations down. You got a big deal you're closing in front of you. I was wondering if you could help us understand, one, you know, what do you think of M&A going into next year, given those dynamics? Two, you know, will you buy anything with Lima, kind of until that gets done? Three, what do you think about valuations in the marketplace? Does that shift whether you go into earlier stage assets or later stage assets? And then lastly, how much post the Lima deal and the recent financings, do you have dry powder? Do you actually have to buy anything? Thanks.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, thanks. Thanks, thanks for the question, very thoughtful, Bill. You know, I, I think, you know, the, we're certainly very excited about the, the Lima deal, as well as, you know, some of the really important, foot and ankle and technology deals that we've done, this year. And, it's definitely been a, better environment in, in terms of, being able to get, better valuations on acquisitions, as you've seen, as we've, we've shared the kind of multiples that we paid for those deals. So we feel like we've taken advantage of this period of time, where it's, it's a little more of a buyer's market, and we had the firepower, and, and we've made some great strategic moves, for the company.

M&A is gonna continue to be a part of our strategy, but clearly, you know, for the next year, we're gonna be, you know, primarily focused on continuing the integration and ramp of the foot and ankle acquisitions that we've made, making sure that the Lima acquisition integration is a tremendous success. And I would, you know, expect very likely that any acquisitions that we do in the next 6 months-12 months are, you know, smaller strategic acquisitions versus anything of any scale and size.

You know, at the same time, we're constantly doing the strategy work to prioritize, you know, where else we'd be interested to make acquisitions, whether it's things that strengthen and accelerate strategies in our core markets, or whether it's things that would move us, you know, further into attractive other attractive ortho markets, or whether it's things that would move us, you know, into attractive adjacencies that would be logical for us. And, you know, we will have a little bit of firepower, you know, over the next year or so, as we start to kind of bring back down our leverage, you know, but probably less than, you know, around a half...

$500 million-ish, and then in the coming years, we'll build that back up and can certainly consider, you know, larger and attractive strategic moves at that point in time.

Bill Plovanic (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Mike Matson from Needham & Company. Mike, you may proceed.

Mike Matson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. So I guess first, you know, given the, you know, number of acquisitions you've done in recent years and the upcoming, you know, close of the Lima deal, I imagine you've, you know, picked up quite a few implant product lines. You know, just wanted to ask about if there's any plans to sort of try to rationalize some of those product lines over time and, you know, how you'd go about doing that. I know that these types of things have products tend to have really long life cycles, and it's sometimes difficult because of the, the customer loyalty aspect to certain products, but.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, thanks for the question. Yeah, for sure, you know, we're taking a look at that. Now, to be honest with you, you know, until the Lima acquisition, the majority of stuff that we have done has not, you know, had much product overlap. You know, the Mathys acquisition in our core Recon products was largely complementary. A little bit of product overlap, but largely complementary, and our foot and ankle acquisitions have almost all been kind of new and complementary additions. With the Lima acquisition, we certainly will get into an area where we've got a little bit more product line overlap.

We still like the complementarity of the technologies and product lines and geographic positions, and so there's not a lot of geography and product line overlap, but there certainly will be opportunities to simplify the product line over time. We're gonna focus on growth first, and really focus on how and where we can cross-sell and how we retain, you know, as much as possible, the customers and channels. The cost efforts that we'll take at the outset will be more, you know, around, you know, sort of, you know, combinations of the businesses and the back office and the businesses and processes.

And then over time, we'll be thoughtful about how and when we might be doing some simplification of the product lines that will, you know, scale us and make our growth more cash efficient over time. But we're gonna do that with an eye towards making sure that we deliver very strong growth, first and foremost.

Mike Matson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, got it. And then, as far as the Lima acquisition goes, you know, we've done some modeling and, you know, particularly with the convertible debt having a bit lower interest rate than we'd originally kind of expected when you announced the deal, we're coming up with sort of double-digit accretion in 2025 and beyond. EPS accretion, sorry. Does that seem reasonable?

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, very much so, Mike, and we even put, I think, some of that in our materials today. I mean, we expect accretion in year one, and then meaningful double-digit accretion starting in year two.

Mike Matson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Just a reminder, if you would like to answer the question queue, press star one. Our next question comes from Jason Wittes from Roth MKM. Jason, please go ahead.

Jason Wittes (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hi. Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. You mentioned pricing. You know, some of your larger peers are talking about getting better pricing concessions in an inflationary environment. Are you seeing that as well? And also, in terms of gross margin, you did see some improvements. How much of that is related to inflation or subsiding of inflation?

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I'd say, Jason, you know, we're, we're seeing on both sides of the business some, I'd say, favorable pricing momentum. You know, one, on the P&R side, where we're the market leader, and we can, you know, put price increases in selective product lines. We've continued to do that over the last couple of years, and we've seen some benefits there. On the recon side, given we're a smaller player, we generally kind of follow what the market's doing. What we're seeing is some stabilization there in terms of, pricing. So we're not seeing as much of the erosion that maybe we've seen in the past, but not a whole lot of increase either. But overall, we would expect that to continue in the, like, in an inflationary environment, and then probably revert back to more normalized views, kind of in more normal times.

In terms of gross margins, it really kind of lines up with our, you know, kind of our expansion goals that we've really laid out, which is one, you know, kind of getting the mix improvements of, you know, kind of the recon business becoming a bigger part of our, our company. It's getting the read-through on the price versus cost, the productivity programs that we can continue to drive, the leverage that we're getting from the volume growth, and then the scale of the acquisitions as well. That's a, you know, a key component of, of driving our increases in gross margins as well. So all, all of those are contributing to, you know, the 140 basis points of expansion that we saw in the quarter.

Jason Wittes (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, great. On Lima, if you could maybe just review kind of, sort of the key products that we should have to be focused on. I mean, obviously, the shoulders are important, but and distribution is very important, but just curious to kind of how you rank, sort of the contributors from Lima and how we should be thinking about it.

Matthew Trerotola (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Yeah, first of all, being a very strong shoulder position with their SMR shoulder, and that's gonna, you know, that's gonna be something that is valuable and extendable. The second would be, they really have had a very strong revision position, and that's, you know, they're a good product in hip and knee, but very strong revision position. And, you know, revision is a very attractive part of the market. And, you know, we've been in earlier days in terms of our revision position in hip and knee, and so, you know, that's attractive and complementary. And then third, they've got just great technologies around 3D printing.

You know, they've been a pioneer, really, in designing and manufacturing with you know metal 3D printing and you know have done you know everything from you know having you know custom implants that are 3D printed for very complicated cases which is a you know great tip of the spear to be able to bring to surgeons to you know to get them interested in in the product line. And at the same time, they've also used those technologies to design you know some great products, like their revision cones for knees that take advantage of that Trabecular Titanium proprietary metal 3D printing. So those are the-- that's the kind of hierarchy of some of the great products they've got and technologies that I would share.

Jason Wittes (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. I'll jump back in queue.

Operator (participant)

At this time, we are done with our question and answer session, and we will then finish the conference as well. We thank you very much for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.