LeMaitre Vascular, Inc.

Welcome to the Lemaitre Bascular Q3 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. J.J. Pellegrino, Chief Financial Officer of Lemaitre Bascular. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on our Q3 2024 Conference Call. With me on today's call is our CEO, George Lemaitre. and our President, Dave Roberts. Before we begin, I'll read our safe harbor statement. Today, we will make some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which is subject to risks and uncertainties. Wherever possible, we will try to identify those forward-looking statements by using words such as believe, expect, anticipate, pursue, forecast, and similar expressions. Our forward-looking statements are based on our estimates and assumptions as of today, October 31st, 2024, and should not be relied upon as representing our estimates or views on any subsequent date. Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information on the risk factors in our most recent 10 and subsequent SEC filings, including disclosure of the factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which include organic sales growth as well as operating income, operating expense, and EPS excluding special charges. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures discussed in this call is contained in the associated press release and is available in the investor relations section of our website, www.lenate.com. I'll now turn the call over to George Lenate.

George Lenate Thanks, JJ. I believe this is our first ever Halloween earnings call, so I'll start my remarks appropriately. If a shareholder rang our doorbell tonight, we would have a few treats for their bag. 16% sales growth and 49% EPS growth. With that out of the way, I'll focus on five topics. Number one, our top line. Number two, the growth of our RSM team. Number three, our brick and mortar international sales offices. Number four, our latest Go Direct efforts. And finally, number five, our MDR CE mark progress. 16% sales growth in Q3 was led by grafts, patches, and carotid shunts, up 24%, 13%, and 18% respectively. APAC was our strongest region again, up 24% thanks to Thailand and Korea, our two newest direct markets. EMEA sales were up 22% in Q3, while the Americas were up 12%. Our 16% sales growth in Q3 was comprised of 10% pricing and 6% unit growth. We ended Q3 with 146 sales reps. As of today, we're at 149, and we're still targeting 155 to 160 for year-end. Of course, as we increase rep headcount, we need to build out our sales management team. We now have 28 RSMs, ASMs, and country managers. up 17% year over year. As for our brick-and-mortar sales offices, we continue to hire staff in our new Paris office, which contributed to 21% French sales growth in Q3, and we're set to lease our first-ever Swiss office near the Zurich airport. In China, we recently signed a lease which will bring together our Shanghai sales office and our Shanghai warehouse into a new, larger facility. While we continue to wait ZenaSure Cardiac Patch approval, our efforts in China are starting to bear fruit. Sales were up 62% in Q3. We've also begun to push forward with Go Direct projects in Portugal and Czechia, where we expect hospital sales to begin in 2025. These will be LaMate's first European Go Direct project since 2016. Both countries utilize the CE mark and are members of the EU, making the transition less complex. Turning to regulatory, we've now received 15 of the 22 MDR CE marks we're currently seeking. The seven remaining MDRs should be received in 2025. One of these approvals is Autographed, our largest U.S. product. We've now received Autographed approval in New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, and Malaysia. And we expect to receive approvals in Singapore, Australia, Canada, and Korea in 2025. Bringing this device to international markets was a key consideration at the time of the 2020 autographed acquisition. I'd also like to begin to thank JJ for his 19 years at LeMaitre. As discussed in our August 8K, he'll be hanging up his CFO cleats in March 2025 after a fantastic career. JJ was elected to our Board of Directors in June 2024 for another three-year term. JJ is also helping to select and train the next CFO. We retained Russell Reynolds for the search, and interviews are ongoing. In conclusion, 2024 is shaping up to be another year of healthy sales and profit growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to JJ.