Neogen Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to the Neogen Corporation second quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings 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. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bill Welke, head of investor relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us this morning for the discussion of the results of the second quarter of our 2023 fiscal year. I'll briefly cover the non-GAAP and forward-looking language before passing the call over to our CEO, John Adant, who will be followed by Steve Quinlan, our retiring CFO, and Dave Nomura, our current CFO. Before the market opened today, we published our second quarter results, as well as a presentation with both documents available in the investor relations section of our website. On our call this morning, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful in evaluating our performance. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and the presentation, slide two of which provides a reminder that our remarks will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and in other filings we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn things over to John.

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call covering the second quarter of our 2023 fiscal year. We're pleased to be with you today to provide the first view of the company's performance since the completion of the food safety acquisition from 3M. We've delivered solid core growth in both of our segments and notably a level of profitability well ahead of where the company was prior to the acquisition. The former 3M food safety business is a great business and highly complimentary, and we're excited about what we've seen in the first four months of our ownership. Clearly, we have still got a number of things to do, and we're early days in the integration, but we're off to a great start, and we have numerous work streams fully underway across the organization to integrate our systems, products, processes, and people. Our integration philosophy has always been the best idea wins. with the willingness to make any changes necessary to improve the business and ensure long-term success. We've made significant progress to date in the realignment and coordination of our commercial efforts. We combined CRM systems on day two, modified geographic coverage areas, and worked together to identify and prioritize the highest potential revenue and synergy opportunities. We've had successes within the marketplace, with customers responding positively to the new products and solutions available to them. Neogen's reputation for technical expertise and excellent customer service has been a considerable asset as we've begun to move forward as one company with one combined portfolio. Planning the relocation of manufacturing operations for our new food safety facility in Lansing and maximizing their efficiency are also key integration items, receiving significant focus and attention. The manufacturing engineers from the former 3M business are assisting in the design and layout of the production process, while construction of the new facility continues on track. In the interim, the manufacturing and distribution of the acquired products will continue under transition service agreements. And we've been collaborating with 3M to address the production and backlog issues that materialize between signing and closing of the transaction. You know, there's still work to be done, but things are moving in the right direction, and we're implementing plans that we believe will lead to further improvements as we move through the second half of the fiscal year. While the integration activities are a broad organizational priority, we're not losing our focus on our customers. The food safety segment, which now comprises approximately 70% of our total revenues, grew nicely in the quarter on a core basis, including the indicator testing category, which is the most significant and profitable piece of the acquired food safety business from 3M. Our animal safety segment had a similar level of core revenue growth, led by genomics and our portfolio of biosecurity products. And tomorrow, we will be having the grand opening of our new expanded distribution center in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, which will shorten customer lead times and allow us to ship more efficiently to our customers. While the elevated level of macro uncertainty has led to some softening in our markets, we believe the business is resilient and well-equipped to drive future growth. We have an excellent team in place, with each member working hard to ensure the new Neogen we are creating will continue its upward trajectory gaining market share, and helping our customers around the world keep the people and animals they care about safe. Now I'll turn it over to Steve for some more insights into our results for the quarter.