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spk04: related costs, higher interest expense, and higher foreign currency losses, partially offset by favorable gross profit as a result of higher product demand in the animal health segment. Income tax expense also decreased by $0.5 million. After making our standard adjustments to GAAP results, third quarter adjusted EBITDA increased $2.3 million. Animal health improved by $2.3 million for 7%. due to gross profit from increased sales partially offset by higher SG&A. Mineral nutrition increased $0.8 million, driven by higher gross profit. Performance products adjusted EBITDA remained relatively the same. Corporate expenses increased $0.7 million, driven by increased employee-related costs. Adjusted net income and adjusted dual DPS both increased 9%. Increased gross profit driven by sales growth, was partially offset by higher adjusted SG&A and higher adjusted interest expense, with a partial benefit from a reduced adjusted provision from income taxes. Moving to segment level financial performance on slide five, we covered the third quarter performance of our largest segment, animal health. The animal health segment posted $181.3 million net sales for the quarter. an increase of $16.9 million or 10% versus the same quarter prior year. Within the animal health segment, we reported MFA and other net sales growth of $15 million or 16% due to demand in both domestic and international regions. Vaccine net sales growth of $6.7 million, a healthy 26% increase during byproduct launches in Latin America, plus an increase in domestic demand. Nutritional specialties net sales declined $4.8 million, or 11%, mostly due to lower demand for microbial and dairy products. Animal health adjusted EBITDA was $36.5 million, a 7% increase due to higher gross profit from increased sales, partially offset by higher SG&A. Moving on to the third quarter financial performance for our other business segment on slide six. Starting with mineral nutrition, net sales for the quarter were $64.2 million, an increase of $1.3 million due to increased sales volume, partially offset by decreased average selling price. Mineral nutrition adjusted EBITDA was $4.7 million, reflecting a year-on-year increase of $0.8 million driven by higher gross profit. Looking at our performance product segment, net sales of $17.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2024, reflected a decrease of $0.7 million, or 4%, driven by decreased demand for personal care product ingredients and industrial chemicals. Adjusted EBITDA was $2.4 million, and declined 2% versus the same quarter prior year. Corporate expenses increased $0.7 million, driven by increased employee-related costs. Now turning to key capitalization-related metrics on slide seven. We saw $40 million of positive free cash flow for the 12 months ended March 31st, 2024. We generated $79 million of operating cash flow and invested $39 million in capital expenditures. Cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments were $99 million at the end of the quarter. Our gross leverage ratio was 4.4 times at the end of the third quarter based on $487 million of total debt and $110 million of trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. Our net leverage ratio was 3.5 times at the end of the third quarter, based on $388 million total debt and $110 million of trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. Turning to dividends, consistent with our history, we paid a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share, or $4.9 million in aggregate. As a reminder, $300 million of our debt is at a fixed rate of 0.61% plus the applicable margin. The remaining $187 million of total debt is subject to variable interest rates, although offset somewhat by interest income earned on short-term investments. Let's turn to slide 8, which lays out our updated guidance for the fiscal year ending, June 30, 2024. We have affirmed our guidance for net sales, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted diluted EPS. We have updated our guidance for GAAP net income and GAAP diluted EPS. The updated guidance includes one-time costs related to the integration of Zoetis products. This is reflected in our GAAP guidance, but are excluded from adjusted measures. Our affirmed or updated fiscal year 2024 financial guidance is shown in the table. Comparisons are to the prior fiscal year, and year-over-year percentages are calculated using the midpoint of the guidance range. Net sales of $980 million to $1.02 billion with growth of 2%. Net income of $7 to $12 million. Diluted EPS of 17 to 30 cents. Adjusted EBITDA of $106 to $112 million, a decline of 3%. Adjusted net income of $42 to $47 million, a decline of 9%. Adjusted diluted EPS. of $1.04 to $1.16, a decline of 9%, and our adjusted effective tax rate range of 28% to 30%. In closing, we are optimistic as we enter the final quarter of our fiscal year. We are confident in the demand of our products around the world and look forward to seeing continued improvement in our business as we move forward. And we are very excited about the pending Zoetis MFA acquisition. With that, Regina, could you please open the line for questions?
spk03: At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our first question will come from the line of Erin Wright with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk02: Great. Thanks. So on the MSA side of the business, what drove some of the strength, I guess, even on the tough comp? And does this continue? And were there any kind of one-time dynamics we should be thinking about and how do we think about kind of the normalized underlying growth rate for the MFA business now? And then once you fold in Zoetis, their MFA portfolio, kind of what does the underlying growth look like for that MFA other segment? Thanks.
spk05: Hi, Erin. Thanks for the question. This is Larry. I'll address the first part of your question having to do with what drove the growth. It's really strong growth in our animal health segment. As Glenn stated, very strong growth in our medicated feed additives and in our vaccines in particular. And so those were the key growth drivers. We experienced that growth geographically in North America and also in South America. Those were the highest growing areas of our business.
spk04: Yeah, just to add some context to it, right? So we said the MFA is through 16% per quarter, which is obviously above the run rate. that we would expect. There were some one-time dynamics in the quarter with some larger customers, you know, based on the timing of their purchases, as well as some strong performance, right? We call it MFA and other. There was some strong performance in the other category as well, which is related to our EPG group. On a year-to-day basis, though, we have seen 7% growth in our MFA business, so strong performance throughout the year as well. And related to the terms of when, you know, we are able to integrate the Zoetis MFA products, you know, we do expect those products, you know, after we bring them onto our hands to get to a growth rate probably in that low single-middle-digit range.
spk02: Okay. And then as we think about the $0.60 accretion from the Zoetis deal, and that's obviously a notable accretion number, so what's the jumping-off point? I think consensus EPS is at about $1.25 for 2025 or your fiscal 2025. So, Is that the right ballpark that we should be at from a jumping-off point, or are there other dynamics we should be modeling out for the underlying business in 2025? Ms.
spk04: Siren, obviously, you know, for our own guidance for 2025, we'll be providing that on our next call as we update guidance. In terms of the $0.60 accretion that we referenced on the call last week, that we do see in the first 12 months of, you know, acquiring the business. So depending on the timing... of close, whether we have a full fiscal year or not, that might impact the 60 cents. But I do also want to mention that we do see that accretion growing over time as we continue to pay down debt and lower our interest expense related to the deal.
spk02: Okay, great. Thank you so much.
spk03: Your next question will come from the line of with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask if you could discuss the companion animal pipeline and your capital allocation after the . Thank you. Hi.
spk06: Good morning. It's Donny Bentheim. Thank you for the question. No real new update on the companion animal pipeline. We continue to make progress. Nothing in the short term to announce. But we do see this overall, this acquisition of the MFA, of the Zoetis MFA business as furthering our ability, along with the leveraging, but furthering our ability to invest in companion animals. There's no shortage of pipeline ideas brought to us. And to date, I think we've been fairly judicious and we'll continue to be judicious. But this will definitely allow us to ramp up our efforts with companion animals.
spk04: Yeah, and so the second part of your question related to capital allocation, obviously the first priority will continue to be to invest in our business. And as Donnie mentioned, areas such as companion animal vaccines, nutritional specialties as well will be key areas of focus. Second, obviously we'll always, you know, continue to look for opportunities outside. But obviously this is a large deal for us with the Zoetis MFA acquisition, so I would expect those to be in smaller nature. And then, you know, we'll look to continue to delever over time, and I think we've committed that we will get to a net leverage ratio below three before the end of fiscal year 2027. And then we'll continue to return capital to our shareholders in the form of our dividend. We remain committed to the dividend. We are in the process of refinancing all of our debt to support this deal. There may be some covenants related to the dividend, but our projections show us well below those covenants, and we understand the importance of the dividend to our shareholders. and plan to maintain them.
spk03: Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Lalaji Prasad with Barclays. Please go ahead.
spk00: Hi, good morning. Thanks for the questions. Two from me. Getting back to the deal, can you help me understand what this means to you incrementally in terms of your focus on companion animal and the appetite for potential business development deals of the site. Second, could you also comment on the shift in the veterinary feed directives and the change from no antibiotics ever to no human antibiotics? And what does this mean to you in terms of market opportunity opening up? Thanks.
spk06: Donny, again, I'll take the first question. Again, I think, as was stated in the opening comments, We view this as the opportunity to invest even stronger or even more in companion animals and nutritional specialties and vaccines. This will be, we anticipate a lot of cash being generated from the combined business, and we recognize that the larger growth opportunities are in those areas that I just highlighted. So, I do anticipate, or we do anticipate that, you know, we will redouble our efforts and continue to invest in those areas.
spk05: Hi, it's Larry. On the second part of your question, the Zoetis MFA business actually has significant weighting of products that are not considered medically important for human medicine by the World Health Organization. These include ionophores, no products in this class are used in human medicine, anticoxidials, no products in this class are used in human medicine, and the bacitracins are not regarded as medically important. Therefore, the combined zoetis MFA and fibro portfolios of medicated feed additives, nutrition specialties, and vaccines offer several choices to livestock producers, including those who produce at an antibiotic-free and or no antibiotics used in human medicine. As to your question about the poultry industry and some of the changes we've seen there, that refers to the reintroduction of ionophores, which again are not medically important antimicrobials, They're used to control coccidiosis and other enteric diseases. Fibro does not currently have ionophores in the U.S., so we really haven't seen impact to our business. However, the Zoetis MFA business does contain ionophores, which will allow us to serve customers with products in this class.
spk00: Thank you.
spk03: And that will conclude our question and answer session. I'll hand the call back to Glenn David for any closing remarks.
spk04: Thank you, Regina, and thank you, everyone, for listening in to today's call. We really appreciate your time, attention, interest, and support of Fibro Animal Health Corporation. Thanks again.
spk03: Thank you all for joining. That will conclude our call today. And you may now disconnect.
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