Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Agilent Technologies fourth quarter 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Thank you. And now I'd like to introduce you to the host for today's conference, Ankur Dhingra, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome everyone to Agilent's fourth quarter and full year conference call for fiscal year 2020. With me are Mike McMullen, Agilent's President and CEO, and Bob McMahon, Agilent's Senior Vice President and CFO. Joining in the Q&A after Bob's comments will be Jacob Tyson, President of Agilent's Life Science and Applied Markets Group, Sam Raha, President of Agilent's Diagnostics and Genomics Group, and Porek McDonald, President of Agilent CrossLab Group. This presentation is being webcast live. The news release, investor presentation, and information to supplement today's discussion, along with a recording of this webcast, are made available on our website at investor.agilent.com. Today's comments by Mike and Bob will refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You will find the most directly comparable GAAP financial metrics and reconciliations on our website. Unless otherwise noted, all references to increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year and references to revenue growth are on a core basis. Core revenue growth excludes the impact of currency and the acquisitions and divestitures completed within the past 12 months. Guidance is based on exchange rates as of October 31, 2020. We will also make forward-looking statements about the financial performance of the company. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are only valid as of today. The company assumes no obligation to update them. Please look at the company's recent SEC filings for a more complete picture of our risks and other factors. Also, as announced, we will hold our virtual investor day in a few weeks on December 9th. The event will include presentations from our CEO, CFO, and the three group presidents, followed by a Q&A. We look forward to having you join us on December 9th. And now, I would like to turn the call over to Mike.

Thanks, Ankur, and thanks to everyone for joining us on our call today. Today, I want to get straight to our quarterly results because they tell a very compelling story. The adjunct team delivered a very strong close to 2020. We posted revenues of $1.48 billion during the quarter. Revenues are up 8% on a reported basis and up 6% core. Operating margins are a healthy 24.9%. EPS of 98 cents is up 10% year over year. These numbers tell the story of a strong, resilient company that's built for continued growth. Our better-than-expected results are due to the strength of our core business, along with signs of recovery in our end markets. Geographically, China continues to lead the way with double-digit growth. From an end market view, both our pharmaceutical and food business has grew double digits. In addition, our chemical and energy business grew after two quarters of decline, exceeding our expectations. We also saw a rebound in U.S. sales during the quarter. Overall, COVID-19 tailwinds contributed just over two points of core growth. Achieving these results in the face of a global pandemic is a tribute to our team and the company we've built over the last five years. I couldn't be more pleased with the way the Agile team has performed over the last quarter and throughout 2020. They have again proven their ability to work together and step up to meet any challenge that comes their way. During the quarter, all three of our business groups grew high single digits on a reported basis. Our life science and applied markets group generated $671 million in revenue, up 8% on a reported basis and up 4% core. LSEG growth is broad-based. The cell analysis and mass spec businesses both grew at double-digit rates. In terms of end markets, chemical and energy returned to growth. Food grew double digits and pharma high single digits. LSAG remains extremely well positioned and is outperforming the market. The Aspen Cross Lab Group came in with revenues at $518 million. This is up a report of 9% and up 7% core. ACG's growth is also broad-based across end markets and geographies. Our focus on on-demand services is paying off as activities in our customer labs continue to increase. The ACG team continues to build on its already deep connections with our customers, helping them operate through the pandemic and continue to drive improved efficiencies in lab operations. For the diagnostic and genomics group, revenues were $294 million, up 9% reported, and up 7% core. Growth was broad-based, with NASD oligo manufacturing revenues up roughly 40%. The genomics and pathology businesses continue to improve during the quarter. I'm also very proud of our NASD team for successfully ramping production at our new Frederick site this year. We have built a very strong position in this attractive market with excellent long-term prospects for high growth. Let's now shift gears and look at our full year fiscal 2020 results. Despite the disruption, uncertainty, and economic turmoil dealing with a global pandemic, the Agilent team delivered solid results. We generated $5.34 billion in revenue, up 3% on a reported basis, and up nearly 1% core. To put this in perspective, it's helpful to recall the progression of our growth. In Q1, we delivered 2% core growth as we saw the first impact of COVID-19 in our business in China. Both Q2 and Q3 declined low single digits as the pandemic spread across the globe and governments instituted broad shutdowns. With 6% core growth, 8% reported in Q4, we're seeing business and economy start to recover. As a result, we are clearly exiting 2020 with solid momentum. Our recurring types of businesses represented by ACG and DDG proved resilient, growing low to mid-single digits for the year. In a very tough capex market, our LSAG instrument business declined only 2% for the year and returned to growth in the final quarter. China led the way for our recovery with accelerating growth as the year progressed. In our end markets, pharma remained the most resilient, and food markets recovered most quickly. Full-year earnings per share grew 5% during fiscal 2020 to $3.28. The full-year operating margin of 23.5% is up 20 basis points over fiscal 2019. As we head into 2021, we do so with tremendous advantage. The industry-leading product portfolio has never been stronger. Our building and buying growth strategy with the focus on high-growth markets continues to deliver. Our ability to respond quickly to rapidly changing conditions is also serving us well. The way our sales and service teams have been able to quickly pivot to meet customer requirements during the pandemic has been nothing short of remarkable. You know, last year at this time, I used this call to remind you of the Agile Shareholder Value Creation Model. Our approach is focused on delivering above-market growth while expanding operating margins along with a balanced deployment of capital. We prioritize the deployment of our capital both internally and externally on additional growth. A few proof points on our growth-oriented capital deployment strategy. A year ago, we spoke about recently closing the biotech acquisition and the promise of growth that biotech represented. Biotech is no longer a promise but a driver of growth. In total, the cell analysis business generated more than $300 million in revenue for us during the year, with double-digit growth in Q4 and continued strong growth prospects. Similarly, last year I was talking about ramping up our new Frederick site facility, a $185 million capital investment. In addition to successfully ramping Frederick as we planned, we did so with an expanding book of business. We also recently announced an additional $150 million investment to add future manufacturing capacity. We are aggressively adding capacity to capture future growth opportunities in this high growth market. Even in the face of a pandemic, we stayed true to our build and buy strategy. We have clearly seen the advantages of our approach. I'm confident our strategy will continue to produce strong results for us. The strength of our team and resilience of our business model has served us well. And as you can see from the numbers, our growth strategy is producing outstanding results for our customers, employees, and shareholders. While uncertainties remain as we begin fiscal 2021, we're operating from a position of strength. Because of this, we're cautiously optimistic about the future. We have built and will sustain our track record of delivering results. and working as a one-agilent team on behalf of our customers and shareholders. As I noted earlier, I couldn't be more pleased with the results of the agilent being delivered in the fourth quarter and throughout the year. Thank you for being on the call today, and I look forward to your questions. I will now hand the call off to Bob. Bob, you're up.

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. In my remarks today, I'll provide some additional revenue detail and take you through the fourth quarter income statement and some other key financial metrics. I'll then finish up with our outlook for 2021 and the first quarter. Unless otherwise noted, my remarks will focus on non-GAAP results. We are very pleased with our fourth quarter results as we saw strong growth exceeding our expectations, especially considering the ongoing challenges associated with COVID-19. For the quarter, revenue was $1.48 billion, reflecting core revenue growth of 5.6%. Reported growth was stronger at 8.5%. Currency contributed 1.7%, while M&A added 1.2 points of growth. From an end market perspective, pharma, our largest market, showed strength across all regions and delivered 12% growth in the quarter. Both small and large molecule businesses grew, with large molecule posting strong double-digit growth. We continue to invest and build capabilities in faster growth biopharma markets and offer leading solutions across both small and large molecule applications. The food market also experienced double-digit growth during the quarter, posting a 16% increase in revenue. While our growth in food business was broad-based, China led the way. And as Mike noted earlier, our chemical and energy market exceeded our expectations, growing 3% after two quarters of double-digit declines. While one quarter does not a trend make, we are certainly pleased with this result. And the growth came primarily from the chemical and material segment. Diagnostics and clinical revenue grew 1% during Q4, led by recovery in the US and Europe. We continue to see recovery in non-COVID-19 testing as expected, although the levels are still slightly below pre-COVID levels. Academia and government was flat to last year, continuing the steady improvement in this market, and revenue in the environmental and forensics market declined mid-single digits against a strong comparison from last year. On a geographic basis, all regions returned to growth. China continues to lead our results with broad-based growth across most end markets. For the quarter, China finished with 13% growth and ended the full year up 7%, just a great result from our team in China. The Americas delivered a strong performance during the quarter, growing 5%, with results driven by large pharma, food, and chemical and energy. And in Europe, we grew 2% as we saw lab activity improve sequentially, benefiting from our on-demand service business in ACG, as well as from a rebound in pathology and genomics as elective procedures and screening started to resume. However, while improving, CapEx demand still lags our service and consumables business. Now turning to the rest of the P&L, fourth quarter gross margin was 55%. This was down 150 basis points year over year, primarily by a shift in revenue mix and an unfavorable impact of FX on margin. In terms of operating margin, our fourth quarter margin was 24.9%. This is down 20 basis points from Q4 of last year, as we made some incremental growth-focused investments in marketing and R&D, which we expect to benefit us in the coming year. The quarter also capped off a full-year operating margin of 23.5%, an increase of 20 basis points over fiscal 2019. Now, wrapping up the income statement, Our non-GAAP EPS for the quarter came in at 98 cents, up 10% versus last year. Our full-year earnings per share of $3.28 increased 5%. In addition, our operating cash flow continues to be strong. In Q4, we had operating cash flow of $377 million, up more than $60 million over last year. And in Q4, we continued our balanced capital approach, repurchasing 2.48 million shares for $250 million. For the year, we repurchased just over 5.2 million shares for $469 million and ended the fiscal year in a strong financial position with $1.4 billion in cash and just under $2.4 billion in debt. All in all, a very good end to the year. Now let's move on to our outlook for the 2021 fiscal year. We and our customers have been dealing with COVID-19 for nearly a full year and are seeing our end markets recover. Visibility into the business cadence is improving. And as a result, we're initiating guidance for 2021. There is still a greater than usual level of uncertainty in the marketplace across most regions. And so while we're providing guidance, we're doing so with a wider range than we have provided historically. It is with this perspective that we're taking a positive but prudent view of Q1 in the coming year. For the full year, we're expecting revenue to range between $5.6 and $5.7 billion, representing reported growth of 5% to 7% and core growth of 4% to 6%. This range takes into account the steady macro environment we're seeing. It does not contemplate any business disruptions caused by extended shutdowns like we saw in the first half of this year. In addition, we're expecting all three of our businesses to grow, led by DGG. We expect DDG to grow high single digits with the continued contribution of NASD ramp and the recovery in cancer diagnostics. We believe ACG will return to its historical high single-digit growth, while LSAG is expected to grow low to mid single digits. We expect operating margin expansion of 50 to 70 basis points for the year. as we absorb the build-out costs of the second line in our Frederick, Colorado NASD site. And in helping you build out your models, we're planning for a tax rate of 14.75%, which is based on current tax policies, and $309 million of fully diluted shares outstanding. And this includes only anti-dilutive share buybacks. All this translates to a fiscal year 2021 non-GAAP earnings per share expected to be between $3.57 and $3.67 per share, resulting in double-digit growth at the midpoint. Finally, we expect operating cash flow of approximately $1 billion to $1.05 billion and an increase in capital expenditures to $200 million driven by our NASD expansion. We have also announced raising our dividend by 8%. continuing an important streak of dividend increases, providing another source of value to our shareholders. Now, let's finish with our first quarter guidance. But before we get into the specifics, some additional context. Many places around the world are currently seeing renewed spikes in COVID-19 that could cause some additional economic uncertainty. And while we're extremely pleased with the momentum we have built during Q4, We are taking a prudent approach to our outlook for Q1 because of the current situation with the pandemic. For Q1, we're expecting a revenue to range from $1.42 to $1.43 billion, representing reported growth of 4.5% to 5.5% and core growth of 3.5% to 4.5%. In first quarter, 2021 non-GAAP earnings are expected to be in the range of $0.85 to $0.88 per share. Before opening the call for questions, I want to conclude by echoing Mike's comments about the amazing work the Agilent team performed during fiscal 2020. To be where we are now after knowing where we stood in March is truly remarkable. Add to this the strong momentum we saw in Q4. I truly believe we are well positioned to accelerate our growth in fiscal 2021. With that, Ankur, back to you for Q&A.

Thanks, Bob. David, let's provide the instructions for Q&A.

Certainly. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pounder hash key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of BJ Kumar with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

uh hey guys congratulations good print here um a couple of questions for me um mike maybe on uh on uh first on that the guidance part here um i guess um the q1 guidance of four and a half to five and a half core uh doesn't have uh does resume any any coattail lens because um i guess you look at q4 uh six percent core um you know any reason why why the core should uh you know um slow down sequentially

Yeah, let me start with Bob. So, again, thanks for the earlier comments, Vijay. So, how to characterize our Q1 guide is, you know, positive, but we're using the word prudent approach. And that, you know, we got a lot of confidence in terms of we're reinstating the guidance. And, you know, we had very good momentum in Q4. And we look at the backlog, we feel very confident about reinstating guidance. But, you know, the virus is still out there, and, you know, we still think there's still a higher level of uncertainty that calls for a prudent approach, hence a positive but prudent approach. If it turns out better, we'd love to be in a position of being able to raise our outlook for the year, but we thought for the first guide for the year, including Q1, and we should take a positive, prudent approach, you know, just recognizing that the virus is still out there. Bob, I don't know if you have anything to that.

Yeah, Vijay, you know, I think a couple of things. You know, the thing that I would say is, you know, we didn't end the year with emptying the tank out and feel really good about that. But that being said, you know, we do have some business that is somewhat susceptible to some of these areas. And so we probably have greater visibility or variability in some of our diagnostics businesses. And so as Mike said, we're taking kind of a prudent approach there. And the other area is we want to see more than just one quarter in the chemical and energy business. I think that's one of the areas where I think we think we're biased to the upside in the way we're kind of thinking about the business. But certainly with the recovery, We do expect some COVID tailwinds, to your point. It's probably on the order of roughly about one and a half to two points, kind of consistent with what we've seen in the last several quarters. So that's kind of how we're thinking about it.

That's helpful, Bob. And, Mike, one bigger picture question for you. I think you mentioned NASD was up 40% in the quarter. it did that business uh accelerate nasd uh and i'm curious uh the longer term opportunity here when you think about it uh um how you know can this be can this end up being a half a billion dollar product for ashen as you look at uh you know four or five years out i'm curious on your thoughts and bob i think you mentioned uh the 50 to 70 basis points of margin expansion inclusive of uh investments in uh frederick uh of those investments on the margins, or I guess what I'm asking is, what should margin expansion have been without those investments? Thank you.

Hey, Bob. Thanks for the question, Vijay. How do I take the first part? And you can take the second part. So that's not out of the realm of reason, your first question, in terms of the longer-term potential total revenue for Agilent. You know, we kind of put a teaser out there earlier about our December analyst and investor day, so we'll talk a bit more about NASD when we meet. But as you know, we are really pleased with what we've talked about in the past in terms of getting to that exit rate of over $200 million business. And, you know, while our capacity in terms of physical capacity is built, We're now just finished up the first year of operations, so just like we did with our Boulder site, we'll continue to find ways to drive more productivity and efficiency out of that asset. And we just announced another expansion of another production line within that existing facility. I hope what you're hearing is a very bullish tone, both in terms of the market growth, but also our ability to get even more of our unfair share, if you will, to capture share in a growing market.

Yeah, BJ, this is Bob. Just to build on that, what Mike talked about, you know, the beauty of that business is it continues to accelerate throughout the year. And that 40%, that roughly 40% growth, in q4 was the highest it was all year and and we um that team has done just a fantastic job of of scaling that business and we're not done and uh as mike said we're making incremental investments um in building out that capacity which will um you know continue to make throughout the course of next year that that is probably about a 20 basis point headwind uh next year in in the um in the operating margin, just rough numbers there, D.J., but extremely pleased with the work that that team has been able to do and continuing to drive that growth. And so we feel very good about that business. Thank you, guys.

You're welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Puneet Sudha with SBB Lelink. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi, Bob and Mike. Thanks for taking the question.

So, Bob, actually, one other question on guidance, and this is probably a favorite topic for you, the Chinese Lunar New Year. Oh, yes.

That time of year again, isn't it? That time of the year. So, you know, this time, obviously, you know, obviously you're seeing how the troops are acting on the ground, how things are there. And I would suspect it would be a lesser impact this year, lesser travel. But correct me if I'm wrong on that. And in light of that, I mean, the guidance, again, appears conservative. Is there anything that we ought to keep in mind for a market that is growing double-digit for you already and is a sizable portion of your revenue? So just walk us through how you're thinking about the Lunar New Year impact here. Yeah, that's great. Great question, Puneet. And as you accurately state, you know, our expectation is the impact is going to be much less this year than it was last year for all the things that you just talked about, less travel, timing of when it is and so forth relative to the Q1. And what we're seeing is actually, you know, very strong continued recovery and performance in our China business. And I would say that there's, you know, Q1 is no different. and and so the story there certainly remains intact and i would expect it to be um very strong performance in q1 um i think what we're trying to do is um there's nothing in particular but i think we're just probably taking a little more uh prudent approach in europe um and as we're seeing some of the shutdowns particularly in some of these areas and um you know i think as we look at where are the things that could potentially be um upsides or downsides i think that continued recovery and chemical and energy across the across the business also um you know continued performance in america's we're expecting kind of an average uh budget flush so to speak uh that's another question that's probably if people are thinking about by you know by for the end of the year um and and both of those things uh could be better than than um than expected

Yeah, Bob, if I could just jump in on that just to amplify the point, Puneet, that Bob made. We're very, very happy with our China business, and we exited the year with momentum, and that's carrying forward into 2021. You know, we're positioning ourselves with, you know, a wait-and-see moment on C&E, and that could be a source of upside for the year. As I said earlier, we're fully prepared. to you know to respect that in a revised outlook and i would just use the word maybe prudent as a way to describe is the adjective bob and i've been using to describe our guide okay that's no that's very helpful thanks

um and if i could um get a sense on the uh on the cell analysis business that business continues to be really strong for you uh biotech scse horse other products in that product line just wanting to get a sense of um what are some of the key drivers there is it largely the cell and gene therapy the cellular product and drug product market is there um you know something in the academic end that is driving that growth, or especially in China, would appreciate and help me frame what's exactly happening there and the opportunity there longer term.

Yeah, Puneet, thanks for the question. And as I mentioned in my call script, we're really pleased with how we've been able to integrate the biotech team, make them part of the Agile family, and then how that collective has led to have a very healthy cell analysis business north of $300 million growing nicely for us. And I know that Jacob would love to be able to have an opportunity to talk a little bit more about the cell analysis. So, Jacob, your thoughts on the specific questions that Puneet put forward?

First of all, let me just echo that I think it's been very impressive what the team has been doing here the past year. And the growth actually stems from multiple dimensions. First of all, we have seen for serology testing that a lot of our biotech portfolio has been using for that, for the ELISA testing. But we also see, generally speaking, imaging being very relevant in the academic markets, but also in the biopharma markets. And the CF portfolio with the flow cytometry is also seeing quite a lot of interest. So it's really broad across both academic and biopharma and COVID-related that we see interest. Lifestyle analysis was where we saw We felt a few years ago that this was an area that would continue to see a lot of growth, particularly at that point about immuno-oncology, but clearly that has moved into a broader understanding of the immune system right now with COVID. But generally speaking, I think this will be a focus for many years to come. So we're very pleased, and we continue to expect good growth in that business.

Yeah, and hey, Puneet, just one thing, because you mentioned China. And, you know, we see really China as a huge opportunity for us going forward. The real growth has been primarily in the U.S. and Europe. I mean, it's growing in China as well, but it's off a very small base. So when we think about the opportunities going forward, leveraging the large infrastructure that Agilent has is really a big opportunity for us, you know, for many, many years to come in the cell analysis space. Great. Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Tycho Peterson with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. Mike, I'm wondering if you could talk a little more on the biopharma strength. You know, 12% on a 7% comp is obviously phenomenal. I know you had 2% from NASD, and you just talked about, you know, cell analysis. But can you maybe just talk more broadly on the strength in biopharma? You know, was any of this a catch-up from, you know, slower spending in the first half of the year? And how do you think about the sustainability of the demand? I know you mentioned you're thinking about an average budget plus, but can you just talk to the broader strength in biopharma?

Yeah, sure. Happy to do so, Tycho. And without giving away too many of the tidbits that I want to talk about in more depth in a few weeks, there was no catch-up here. This is part of this continued strength in the biopharm area. It's been an area of focus, and we'll go into some more detail with you in a few weeks, but it's been an area of focus in terms of increased investments. relative to our biopharma tools, both the instrumentation along with the chemistry platform, a real workflow focus there, cross-hole value chain. We're getting nice growth, as you mentioned earlier, on NASD. But the story is much bigger than that, to be honest with you. And then, obviously, we're picking up some growth here in the cell analysis. So I think it's really a multifaceted strategy that's really driving this growth. We think it's sustainable. We think a double-digit outlook on the biopharma portion of Agile's business is is quite reasonable. We're really excited. It's an investment priority for us.

Yeah, and Tycho, maybe if I can add to Mike's point in terms of, because it's not only the platforms and the portfolio that we have on the instrument basis, which we've been making some heavy investments in, but it's also been the informatics and the software piece, which has allowed us to be able to kind of plug into the labs, the analytical labs, and then you bring in the ACG services portfolio to help them manage the labs. And particularly with everything that's going on right now, the last thing they want is their scientists to be managing the instrumentation. They want them to be doing the science. And so we think we've got a very compelling software and tools offering, and I think it's showing up in the marketplace across multiple technology platforms.

Great. And then, Mike, you used the phrase wait and see moment for C&E a couple minutes ago, and it's good to see that back to growth. Can you maybe just talk on some of the data points you're watching in your customer base and how you're thinking about the recovery curve there?

Yeah, thanks for Tycho. So my comments come back from my first year as a CEO when I tried to call the turn of the C&E business. And eventually it turned, but I think I was off by several quarters. So I learned my lesson, so to speak. So as Bob mentioned, one quarter a trend does not make, but we're very encouraged by that because it's the first time we've seen some growth after those two double-digit declines earlier this year. And we look at a couple of things, Tycho. One is just the just the PMIs and the positive moves in the PMIs are indicative of, you know, improved market strength, particularly in C&E. We also look at the, what we estimate to be the age of the installed base because there's a lot of aged equipment out there, and that's been probably at a very high level. And then we look at the deal flow. So kind of all those factors, you know, the macro outlook from PMIs, what we know to be the current environment for customers in terms of the age of their installed base, and then also what we're seeing in our funnels. And, you know, Agilent has a real strength in its markets, I think. we will benefit from a return here to the growth. And again, we weren't ready yet to put it into numbers for Q1 in the full year, but we're hopeful that that trend will continue. There's some indications that it could, but let's give it another quarter or so.

Okay. And then lastly, before I hop off, one quick one on China. One of the other tools companies, Mettler, talked about pent-up demand and kind of suggested that what they saw may not be sustainable. Have you seen anything in your order book that would suggest what you're seeing in China now is not sustainable?

Yeah, no. Tiger, I really appreciate you asking that question because not at all. I mean, this has been a continuing study. flow of business um we think the end markets are really strong here um we see a lot of strength in in china government funding to make sure they stimulate the economy and then we talked earlier about this overall their investments in improving the quality of life you notice the the strong strong growth in the food market uh continued strength in in pharma so no we've seen this now i think we've really looked closely at the pacing and it's all nothing unusual yeah taiko i i think you know

we've been extraordinarily pleased with the way our China businesses perform throughout the course of this year. And when you think about kind of our cadence through Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, we've seen accelerated growth. So we saw our lowest growth in the first quarter where we saw the impact of COVID-19, but then what we've seen is improvements as opposed to this real huge increase and then kind of a drop-off. So we're not expecting any drop-off, and we haven't seen that in our order book or any of the conversations that we've had with our customers, that there was sort of a a material catch-up.

Okay.

Thank you. You're quite welcome, Tygo.

Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Collier with Jefferies. The line is open.

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. Mike, a couple questions on LSAG. Sure. I'm curious if you could speak to the order book in the fourth quarter and to the sense that you may have built some backlog there. And Curious just to – you speak to perhaps the margin compression in the fourth quarter, whether that was mostly mixed or if you could elucidate some of the dynamics there.

Happy to do so, Brandon. So one of the reasons why we were able to reinstate guidance this year was what we saw in the LSAG order book. And as you know, we stopped a few years ago talking about specifics around orders, but I think in today's context, It's really prudent to give you a sense of why Bob and I have this confidence around the outlook. So we didn't gasp as we ran across the finish line for 2020. Order book was strong in LSAG and has continued into the early few weeks of this year. um you know all the other caveats aside uh you know being prudent and recognize recognition of the of the virus we feel pretty good about you know our ability to reinstate guideline because as we mentioned earlier uh recent reinstate guidance as i mentioned earlier lsag was one where we hit the most uh earlier in the year and i think we're feeling pretty good about that and bob as i recall um you know most of the gross margin is really just a mix uh relative to various instrument platforms yeah that's right i mean i think

Brandon, to read what Mike is saying, I mean, we feel very good. Orders exceeded revenue and exceeded our expectations. And so it was a bit of a mixed shift that is impacting that. But we would expect that to kind of normalize out throughout the course of next year. And so feel very good about kind of where that business is going. going into 2021. Yeah.

And, you know, Ben, just one additional thought here, which is we've seen no real changes in the pricing environment. So, you know, that's why we can stay pretty calm. It's just that it happened to be the mix of the product this quarter.

Superman, one more for Bob. You mentioned currency was a drag to margins in the fourth quarter. Could you quantify that, the magnitude of the operating line, and then what you've penciled in for impact of FX? to operating margins in 21 be helpful?

Yeah, it was roughly about 40-ish, 45-ish on the COGS line, and some of that was offset through the bottom line. And for next year, less impactful, much less impactful than that, you know, probably less than about 10 points, 10 basis points.

Super. Thanks. You're welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Leonard with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Thank you. So to start off on the guidance, a question for probably you, Bob. You have touched on this in pieces, but can you give us at a high level what your key assumptions are by region and by end market?

Yeah, so at the highest level, we are expecting steady improvement throughout the course of the year from the standpoint of uh the the economic perspective if i think about it from a geography first china is going to lead the way with um high single-digit growth um you know continuing the the momentum that we've seen we ended this year uh fy20 about seven percent and we're expecting that or better uh into next year and then what you would see is a recovery in uh in the americas getting back to kind of mid to high single digits and then followed by Europe, which would be kind of the low to mid single digits. So that's kind of an in-market perspective, how we would think about it. It's predicated on that continued recovery and that we would, as I mentioned before, not have any extended periods of shutdown that would disrupt business. I think the good thing is what we're seeing, not only ourselves, but our customers are being able to operate in a different environment than they had the first time these were shut down. So we're not expecting any material impact there. And from an end market perspective, the strength is really going to be the continued strength that we've seen in the last several years, really driven behind our pharma business, which is probably high single digits. with with biopharma as uh one of the earlier questions came out probably growing double digits uh going forward um and then you know food we'll probably expect maybe a little tempering uh where it would be great to have 16 every quarter but we're not ready to put that into our our plan but i would expect continued recovery there probably in the mid single digits And also recovery in our diagnostics and clinical business, particularly in that same kind of mid-single digits and probably ramping throughout the course of the year. We're probably more muted on the academia and government, probably flattish to low. And as we talked about before, chemical and energy flattish, but that's really one where we're hoping that we're biased to low. And there's more upside than downside here, but, you know, certainly given the momentum. But one quarter is too early to put a forecast on there. And so we're assuming roughly flat and then probably a recovery in the environmental and forensic market at, you know, low single digits.

Okay. Thanks for that overview. And then for my follow up, you touched on there being a wider range of outcomes in 21, the typical and mentioned that the bottom end doesn't capture any threats around reestablishment of lockdowns or whatnot. Do you feel the high end of guidance really, you know, captures all the, you know, the benefits from easy comparisons and any potential upsides there might be? Or how would you frame, you know, what you're capturing in the high end there?

Yeah, I would say it's continued momentum, but I think that there's probably more upsides than downsides in the way that we're trying to capture that. Certainly, you know, exiting at a 6% growth rate. There are, you know, probably the biggest areas are around chemical and energy and the pace of recovery in academia and government. And if those continue, I would say, let me put it this way, if chemical and energy continued at 3% and growing, we'll be that number.

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ben.

Your next question comes from the line of Douglas Schenkel with Calum. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Good afternoon, Doug. I have a few cleanup guidance questions, but before I get to that one, I just wanted to talk about your performance specific to your mass spec product line. You talked about another quarter of double-digit growth. I'm just wondering if you'd be willing to unpack that a bit more and just talk about what's driving this. And specifically, is China and more specifically China food a major driver? I guess I'm just trying to get at you know, which segments of the portfolio or specific end markets or geographies that really stand out within a pretty robust and impressive growth rate there.

Hey, Doug, really appreciate the opportunity to have Jacob comment more deeply on that. But, as you know, I highlighted that in my script. We were able to call out that double-digit growth. We're extremely proud of that. And, Jacob, I think you've got some additional insights maybe you could share with Doug.

Yeah, this is a great question, and I'm certainly proud of what the team has been doing over the past year, because this is not only a quarterly effect here, but we have done quite an overhaul of our Maasbeck portfolio, particularly the LCMS portfolio over the last few years, both on the high-end triple quad, but also the single quad. And you've seen we have really been focusing on robust, reliable and routine applications. And this is really what the customers are looking for right now. So you can really see that the investments we have done really resonate with our customer base. And it's right now, I would say, in most geographies and in most end markets. But if you look into it, it's biopharma and China is definitely a big competitor. big part of this story. And the other element to it is that we pivoted very quickly to remote customer engagement during the beginning of this year. And when the customer had to shut down the laboratory, we were there for them. We did support them when they were in tough times. And you can see that paid dividends today that they also continue with a partnership with Accident. So I actually believe that we are on a quite good momentum here with the mass-based business. Yep.

All right. Yeah, that sure does. Thank you for that. And then maybe just a few guidance questions. This will be kind of a speed round in a way because you have got some questions about these already. But on China, do you expect double-digit growth in fiscal 21? On gross margin, you talked about some of the headwinds you saw in Q4 becoming less pronounced moving forward. So do you expect gross margin overall to get back up to the 56 plus level? And then on COVID-19, I think you talked about just over two points of COVID tailwinds in the quarter. I'm just wondering if looking forward, you know, either fiscal Q1 or for the full year, if you could see a scenario where this would accelerate over time, if serology volumes begin to inflect in a positive way. And, you know, same thing on the antibody business. Could those in combination drive more of a tailwind moving forward? So China, gross margin, and COVID-19.

Yeah, so China, high single digits, maybe low double digits, based on the range that we gave you. In terms of COVID, what I would say is we are expecting less incremental growth, but certainly the things that you talked about aren't baked into our guidance. So more serology or or antigen-based testing or even vaccine-driven volume is not fully baked into the numbers that we are. It's just too early to tell. But those are certainly be things that are, you know, potential upsides. And then the last one I know, which was your second question around gross margin, I would expect it to – you know, stabilize and not see the same level of decline. Now, what I would say is you will have some mix shifts, right, because our ECG business, which is lower gross margin than the instrument business, but much higher operating margin, helps us with that. So you do see a dampening effect on the gross margin side, but you will more than make up for it on the operating margin side. Yeah.

And, you know, Bob, Doug, specific to COVID-19, we'll hit a little bit more of that when we have our analyst day. But we are planning to launch in early 2021 our serology test. And, you know, there are some things that we're working on that aren't baked into the guide. We'll see how they play out.

Okay. That's great. Thank you, guys, for all the time. And happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Same to you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Derek DeBruyne with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon.

Hey, Derek. Hey, Derek. Hey, so I'm going to do this similar to Doug. I've got a couple of focus questions. I've got one guidance cleanup.

So I guess specifically, Bob, you mentioned some software pushes in your business, particularly in the pharma business. Can you be a little bit more specific on that? I mean, is OpenLab – taking share against Empower? Are you winning? Have you replaced Empower in some of the accounts there? I'm just sort of curious on what the dynamics are in the CDS market.

Yeah, what I would say, Derek, is that we feel very good about our competitive positioning with Open Lab and the rest of our products. Okay. I'll live with that, I guess. Yeah.

And by the way, I'm better looking than Doug. On the core genomics business, I mean, we don't really have talk about that. I mean, you talk about the NASD and some of the other things there, but what's going on in your core genomics business? You know, you've got SureSelect. I mean, you've had some pressures and some of that in market there.

What's that underlying business growing? Yeah, actually, a great question because we didn't highlight that. But actually, when you look at sequential performance, that was one of the things that was very positive in the DGG business. It recovered very nicely into Q4. And maybe I'll let Sam talk about some of the details there.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Bob. You know, as you said, as we went into the heavy part of the pandemic, if you will, late Q2, early Q3, some of the genomics business also serves clinical diagnostic customers, be it for SureSelect being the backbone of some of the leading cancer diagnostic NGS-based tests, as well as other inherited diseases. So we definitely saw the effect of that. But coming into Q4, we've seen a steady stream of increase there. And we've also seen a positive effect in parts of our portfolio that are related to QPCR, be it our instruments, be it be it our consumables that are used, and also we have the leading, you know, genomics QC portfolio, as you're probably aware of, and we see a number of those products, including our fragment analyzer being, you know, used increasingly for, you know, picking up conventional, or sorry, with the pickup of conventional clinical testing, but also being used, for example, for some of the mRNA vaccines that are in development. So, You know, all in all, the trend is looking encouraging for our core genomics business.

Great. And then just one housekeeping question. For 21, the other income expense line, how should we think about that for 21? Bob, do you want me to handle that or do you want to take it out? Yeah, it'll be slightly better than where it is this year.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jack Meehan with Nefron Research. Your line is open.

Hello, Jack. Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to go back to biopharma. Mike, I was curious if you're seeing any change in terms of customer spending patterns at all because of COVID-19. There's just been such a focus on bioprocessing to support vaccines and therapeutics. What's that doing in small molecule, if you can call out any trends?

You know, Jack, great question. So to our delight, it really hasn't seemed to cause any kind of material shift. I mean, we're seeing, in fact, I think Bob highlighted his script where we saw strength across small molecule and large molecule. Now, the small molecule is not growing as fast as large molecule. It was growing.

Yeah, Jack, to give you some numbers, I mean, For Q4, small molecule grew high single digits, and for the year, it grew low single digits. So despite all the hoopla, small molecule is not dead.

Great. And maybe just to build on that, so the high teens ACG growth in China, could you just parse out for us how did food do versus how did maybe generics do in terms of some of the consolidation there?

You know, as Bob, as I recall, and I'll invite Porgy on this one, I think it was broad-based across all end markets. Everything was in that double-digit range. And, Porgy, anything you'd add to that?

No, I think you said it well, Mike. I think across both sides of the business, both the chemistries and services, very strong demand in all markets. And we see certainly a strong demand for our installation, familiarization, and startup services. So really strong across the board in China. Great. Thank you, guys.

Your next question comes from the line at Patrick Donnelly in the city. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe a follow-up on the chemical and energy side. It certainly sounds like that's the biggest area upside, maybe the biggest variable for next year. It sounds like chemicals and materials things are improving. Can you just give a bit more detail around the customer tone there and And then is energy the bigger variable to 21? Maybe just talk through kind of the scenario analysis as you guys think about it. It certainly seems like there's upside, but maybe just kind of what parts of the business you feel like are the biggest variables there.

Yeah, I think that first of all, it's always helpful to remind everybody of our mix. So 70-30, so 70-30 in chemicals and materials and 30% energy. I actually have the upside on the chemicals and material. Energy lags, and we aren't really seeing a lot of indications of why that would that would pick up. But you have to remember, some of the chemical companies are actually providing products and such into end markets that support COVID-19. They're feeling, you know, what drives this marketplace? Yes, you know, we talked earlier about PMIs, but really it's all, the PMIs are really related to the view of global growth. And I think that customer base is feeling more confident about where the economy is going and things just, you know, will just shut really, really slowed down earlier this year just for, you know, a must kind of purchases. But I think, you know, I think it's the approved view of the overall economic outlook for the chemicals and materials side, plus the fact that they have some kind of COVID-19 tailwinds that are helping out. I wouldn't say that's the entire story. It's just the element of it. I think the biggest part here is just the fact that there's much more confidence in the customer base about the growth environment from an economic standpoint. Do you have anything to add to that? I think you're right. Okay.

That's very helpful. And then just on the capital deployment side, I know you guys always take the balanced approach, and I'm sure we'll hear more about it in a couple weeks. But how are things trending in the pipeline on the M&A side? Cash flow has obviously been pretty strong. How active should we expect you guys to be on that front? Any changes and thoughts around the size of deals you want to pursue? Any metrics you could throw out that would be helpful? Thanks.

No, no. We continue to be very interested in deploying capital for growth standpoint along all the dimensions we talked about earlier. We said that the biotech size deal, which we were really quite happy with, that was the largest deal we've done to date. That doesn't mean that would be the largest deal we would do. We've always said, I think, not magnitudes of Delta. And although we didn't close any deals this year, I think that really was somewhat tied into some of the COVID-19 challenges of doing due diligence and working with potential targets. We still see this as a key part of what we call our build-and-buy growth strategy and think that M&A can be a nice adder to our core growth businesses. So you guessed right. We'll talk more about it in a few weeks, but we still have aspirations in this space. But really sticking to the model and the framework that we've been using before, which is,

uh m a in markets that are higher growth than the rest of the company that align strategically with us where we can where they can benefit by our scale and are creative to to the p l yeah i would say you know patrick just to build on what mike was saying i mean we feel very good about the the acquisitions that we made the two la the one the last two which was biotech and acia were probably the fastest growing bit parts of our business if you take out nasd And so I think it validates the space that we're looking at, and we don't see a reason to need to change our M&A framework. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Your final question comes from the line of Steve Beauchamp with Wolf Research. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks for sneaking me in here. I'll just ask one, maybe I guess it's a two-parter, one part for Mike, one part for Bob.

Okay, I'll be giving you the easy one.

I think you're going to like it. I think you're going to like it. Okay. Mike, the last call, you raised this concept. You called it a flight to quality. And you talked about how the team with their execution has been able to drive share gain. I wonder if you could talk about whether you think that as the pandemic subsided in some ways, and labs are opening up again, If you think that that dynamic has become any more or less acute and if you think it's sticky, I'm going to go ahead and ask the second part of my, I guess I'll call it, COVID discovery question for Bob. Bob, like a lot of CFOs, you've had a chance to see how much you can save within operating expenses as we're all working remotely and being more digital. Have you thought about putting any numbers around how much of the savings that you've discovered here could end up being permanent? Thanks a bunch, everybody.

Sure. Yeah, thanks, Steve. So in regards to the first one, we probably talked about the flight to quality when money is tight. But we also, I think, tied it to, you know, the stability and how we protected our overall field team and our ability to, you know, support our customers during the pandemic. So I think those two things are going to carry us forward. So we think that the stickiness – will remain there. And I don't think that the quality will fall out of fashion. And I think as you continue to grow your position in the install base, this gives you an upper hand in terms of the next buy when they get around to making the next capital purchasing decision.

Yeah, I would agree with that, Mike. And I think that that, you know, I think two things. One is we were there when the customers needed us the most. And our team, you know, particularly in the field, helping support, you know, critical operations and so forth. And that flight to quality on the instrumentation side only pays dividends going forward. So I think there is no – there will be no fall off there. I truly believe that. On the cost side, we're still working through some of those things. You know, a big thing, probably the biggest variable here, and it's got a couple of different tentacles to it, would be around travel and transportation. I think we had talked about before. At one point in time, we were spending roughly $10 million a month in travel, and that is down, I would say, substantially. And our goal is that that won't be back to $10 million a month. And so that doesn't say that we're going to necessarily drop it all to the bottom line, but reinvest in some areas that will drive growth going forward. But certainly those – and then there will be more efficient ways of doing things like marketing, outreach to our customers, and – Even operating, one of the things is we still operated and launched new products despite not having been in the labs for the most part for nine months out of the year. And so our teams are finding innovative ways to continue to actually move things around without having to spend incremental dollars. So more to come on that.

Yeah, we think some of these are going to stick, particularly as it relates to your digital engagement with customers because there's a huge element of being responsive and engaging We think that digital cable is a big part of that story, and yes, it's been accelerated by COVID, but we don't think there's any going back either. Got it. Thank you for all the color there, guys. You're quite welcome.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.