The Cooper Companies, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2026 Cooper Company's earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Please limit questions to one and one follow-up. To ask a question, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kim Duncan, Vice President of Investor Relations and Risk Management. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and welcome to Cooper Company's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During today's call, we will discuss the results and guidance included in the earnings release and then use the remaining time for questions. Our presenters on today's call are Al White, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Andrews, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements relating to revenues, EPS, cash flows, interest, FX and tax rates, tariffs, and other financial guidance and expectations, strategic and operational initiatives, market conditions and trends, and product launches and demand. Forward-looking statements depend on assumptions, data, or methods that may be incorrect or imprecise and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Events that could cause our actual results and future actions of the company to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements are set forth under the caption forward-looking statements in today's earnings release and are described in our SEC filings, including Cooper's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings. all of which are available on our website at coopercoes.com. Also, as a reminder, the non-GAAP financial information we will provide on this call is provided as a supplement to our GAAP information. We encourage you to consider our results under GAAP as well as non-GAAP and refer to the reconciliations provided in our earnings release, which is available on the investor relations section of our website under quarterly materials. Should you have any additional questions following the call, please email ir at cooperco.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Al for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Kim, and welcome, everyone. We're pleased to report a strong start to the fiscal year highlighted by product launches, outstanding profitability, and robust cash flow. These results reflect our disciplined execution combined with the significant synergies we're realizing from last year's reorganization. For today's call, I'll begin with an update on the three key strategic priorities we outlined in December. and then move to Q1 results and guidance. First, we remain focused on delivering consistent market share gains for Cooper Vision. In calendar 2025, we gained share for an 18th consecutive year, and we enter 2026 with the intention of doing so once again. In our first fiscal quarter, we made meaningful progress with a global rollout of our premium MyDay daily silicone hydrogel portfolio, growing branded sales and executing on private label contracts. Regionally, the Americas and EMEA strengthen and have excellent commercial momentum. Japan weighed on our Asia pack results, but we're executing on product launches and investing to restore growth in the region. We're also incredibly excited about the early adoption of our MyDay MySite launches in EMEA and MySite in Japan. At Cooper Surgical, we're encouraged by improving trends in our fertility business and look forward to positive momentum continuing. Second, our commitment to delivering strong earnings and free cash flow through operational excellence was clearly evident this quarter. The organizational changes and IT implementations we completed last year are generating meaningful synergies, providing us with the opportunity to invest in sales and marketing initiatives while still delivering outstanding financial performance. Q1 earnings exceeded the top end of our guidance range, and those earnings translated into a healthy $159 million in free cash flow. Given our strong start to the year, we're raising guidance for both earnings and free cash flow. Third, we continue to maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation. We've entered a multi-year period of consistent earnings and free cash flow growth, and we're deploying capital to high return opportunities. This starts with prioritizing internal investments that drive revenue growth, which we did this past quarter by increasing sales and marketing spend at Cooper Vision and Cooper Surgical in support of product launches and key strategic initiatives across both businesses. We also repurchased $92 million in stock during the quarter, reinforcing our commitment to consistent share repurchases as a core part of our long-term strategy to drive shareholder value. and the remainder of our cash was used to reduce debt. Before reviewing the quarterly details, I want to address the strategic review we announced in December. We understand there are strong investor interest in this process. While we're not in a position to provide an update today, given where we are in the process, the review is progressing as planned with active engagement from our board and advisors. We will communicate outcomes if we have something definitive to share or when the process is complete. In the meantime, our board and management remain highly focused on maximizing long-term shareholder value. This includes driving organic growth by winning new contracts and strengthening customer relationships, delivering strong earnings and cash flow by leveraging our infrastructure, and deploying a consistent capital allocation strategy that includes share buybacks and debt paydown. With that, let's move to the Q1 results. Consolidated revenues were $1.024 billion, up 6.2%, or up 2.9% organically. Cooper Vision reported revenue of $695 million, up 7.6%, or up 3.3% organically. And Cooper Surgical delivered revenue of $329 million, up 3.3%, or up 2.2% organically. Operating margins improved meaningfully, and non-gap earnings grew 20% to $1.10. For Cooper Vision, on an organic basis, torques and multifocals grew 6%, and spheres grew 1%. Daily silicone hydrogel lenses grew 7%, led by double-digit growth in my day, while clarity was up slightly. Biofinity and Avera grew a combined 3%, and my site continued its strong growth up 23%. Regionally, the Americas grew 6%, led by strength in daily silicone hydrogel lenses, and EMEA grew 4%, strengthening our number one market position in that region. Asia-Pac declined 4% as execution on new product launches was more than offset by softness in Japan, primarily tied to lower margin older hydrogel products. To accelerate APAC performance, we've upgraded several leadership roles, increased marketing investments, and are ramping up our new regional distribution center, which is already enhancing customer service with faster fulfillment. We've also recently launched MyDay Toric in Taiwan, MySite in Japan, MyDay MySite in Australia and New Zealand, and we're increasing regional availability of MyDay Multifocal and MyDay Toric Expanded Range. We also have private label launches underway in multiple markets, and in Japan, we'll be launching the full Clarity family later this year with the addition of both a torque and multifocal, providing a competitively priced full family silicone hydrogel upgrade path for the large base of hydrogel wearers in that market. While we expect AsiaPac to remain down in Q2 due to declining legacy hydrogel sales, we are confident the region will return to growth in fiscal Q3 given all of our launch activity. Turning to products, our daily silicone hydrogel portfolio continues to perform well, with MyDay leading the way through expanding customer partnerships, broader availability, and ongoing launches. Our premium-priced offerings delivered the strongest performance, led by MyDay Multifocal, Energist, and Torex, all growing over 15%. Particular strength was seen with MyDay Multifocal as its rollout continues to gain momentum. Our premium MyDay Energist also posted strong growth driven by its innovative digital boost technology designed to provide maximum comfort in today's heavy digital world. This product will be launched shortly in Europe, and we look forward to the boost it will provide in that region. MyDay Toric, which offers the broadest SKU range in the category and is powered by the same leading Toric design in our BioAuthentity Toric, continued delivering exceptional growth. We also closed additional MyDay key customer contracts and private label partnerships this past quarter across all three regions. For the Clarity product family, it grew modestly led by the ongoing launch of our new multifocal in the Americas. This multifocal has the same next generation optical design as MyDay, meaning an easy fit lens with consistent performance across different lighting conditions, distances, and patient profiles. so we expect strong performance as we launch across EMEA and APAC later this year. Turning to myopia control, my site grew 23% to $28 million. Momentum is building with our latest innovation, MyDay MySite, launching in EMEA in January to an extremely positive reception thanks to the combination of proven myopia control efficacy and the all-day comfort of a premium silicone hydrogel lens. We also launched MySite in Japan in February and are seeing a similar enthusiastic response. Japan is one of the world's most significant vision care markets, and with an estimated 77% of elementary school children being myopic, it represents a substantial opportunity for MySite. We're supporting these launches with our most comprehensive professional engagement programs to date, highlighted by major conference engagement, high-impact regional launch events, extensive KOL education, and media initiatives, initiatives reaching tens of thousands of eye care professionals. These efforts are driving very strong clinician activation rates, reinforcing our confidence that our early momentum will continue as My Day MySight expands in EMEA, across Asia-Pac, and into Canada. MySight remains the only FDA-approved contact lens for myopia control and the first and only lens approved for myopia control in both Japan and China. We're also continuing to invest heavy in myopia control R&D and have several exciting breakthrough innovations underway, which further supports our confidence in my site's ability to deliver consistent, long-term, robust growth. To conclude our Cooper vision, let me highlight our performance relative to market. This is calendar quarter data, so apples to apples with our competitors. In calendar Q4, we grew 10%, and the market grew 6%. For the full calendar year 2025, this translated into 6% Cooper Vision growth versus the market at 5%, marking our 18th consecutive year of market share gains. Turning to Cooper Surgical, we delivered quarterly revenue of $329 million, up 3% or up 2.2% organically. Fertility revenues were $127 million, up 3% organically. Growth was driven by strong global genomics performance supported by continued commercial and operational execution across product launches, new clinical wins, and expansions within existing accounts. We also saw solid results in consumables led by Media, Zymote, our sperm separation device that helps optimize fertility procedures, and Witness, our automated lab tracking system. These gains were partially offset by softness in the Middle East, and lower equipment installations. Importantly, we are now seeing early but clear signs of recovery in the fertility market. As we move through the first quarter, results steadily improved, supported by solid execution on contract wins and new product launches, as well as strengthening underlying market trends. This momentum positions us well for continued improvement through the remainder of the year, though developments in the Middle East, where we hold a leading market position, remain a source of uncertainty. For the fertility market overall, the product and services segments that we operate in had delivered strong growth for many years before slowing in late 2024. While several factors contributed to the deceleration, the industry is now recovering, driven by renewed clinic interest in adopting new technologies, along with improving cycles in the US and several European countries. Although a rapid rebound is unlikely, we anticipate steady improvement as we annualize last year's pressures and underlying activity normalizes. Moving to office and surgical, sales were $202 million, up 2% organically. Medical devices grew 6%, driven by strong performance in our surgical OBGYN portfolio, led by our uterine manipulators and related products, and continued momentum in our specialty surgical products, including our innovative single-use lighted cordless surgical retractors. This was partially offset by softness and some legacy medical devices, and ParaGuard declining 7%, which was expected against a difficult comp tied primarily to last year's launch of the new single-hand inserter. To conclude, I want to recognize and thank our Cooper team for their dedication to operational excellence, investing in sales and marketing, to drive organic growth while maintaining disciplined cost control and continuing to build a streamlined and technologically efficient company is no easy task. So thank you to the entire team. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.