Koninklijke Philips N.V. NY Registry Shares

Welcome to the Royal Philips First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call on Monday, April 29th, 2024. During the call, hosted by Mr. Roy Jacobs, CEO, and Mr. Abhijit Bhattacharya, CFO, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the introduction, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this call will be recorded and replay will be available on the Investor Relations website of Royal Philips. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Leandro Mazzini, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Philips' first quarter 2024 results webcast. I'm here with our CEO, Roy Jacobs, and our CFO, Abhijit Bhattacharya. The press release, Investor Deck, and the frequently asked questions on the Respironics field action were published on our Investor Relations website this morning. The replay and full transcript of this webcast will be made available on the website after the call. Before we start, I want to draw your attention to our safe harbor statement on screen. You will also find the statement in the presentation published on the website. Roy, over to you.

Good morning, everyone, and warm welcome. Great to be with you today. I want to start with the key highlights of this morning's release. We delivered results in line with our performance improvement plan with 2.4% comparable sales growth and strong margin improvement in the quarter and order intake growth turning positive outside of China, especially in North America. This was a result of continued strong focus and progress on our three execution priorities. Secondly, we have taken several very important steps in resolving the consequences of the Respironics recall. The consent decree was signed and approved in court. We received final court approval for the previously announced economic law settlement. We reached an agreement to resolve the personal injury and medical monitoring litigation in the US. And we also concluded an agreement with insurers to cover Respironics recall related product liability claims. Following the remediation of sleep therapy devices and the reassuring test results to date, these are very important milestones to provide further clarity on the way forward for Philips. Supported by key innovation launches and our ongoing actions to enhance its execution, we are confident in our performance improvement plan for 2024. Onto the key financial highlights. Comparable sales growth was 2.4% in the quarter, driven by 3% growth in the diagnosis and treatment and personal health segments, partly upset by a 1% decline in connected care against very tough comms and monitoring. Group sales grew 2% in mature geographies. Growth geographies sales grew 3%, despite a decline in China. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved significantly to 9.4% in the quarter. Freed cash flow was an outflow of €336 million in line with normal quarterly phasing. Order intake in the quarter declined, as anticipated, due to the situation in China. This was driven by the impact of the industry-wide anti-corruption measures and the comparison against an exceptionally high order intake base from last year. Importantly, order intake grew outside of China, with encouraging performance in North America. We remain focused on implementing the necessary actions to strengthen quality delivery, reduce lead times, leverage our enhanced operating model, and market our AI-driven innovations to improve order intake. Overall, based on the gradually improving market environment in the US, as well as expected improvement of the situation in China, our exciting innovation launches, and our ongoing actions, we continue to expect positive order intake growth in the full year 2024. In China, the government-imposed anti-corruption measures continue to impact short-term decision-making by hospitals. But we do not expect it to impact the fundamental demand, as China remains an attractive market. Our order funnel is very active in the country, and we expect order growth to resume in China in the second half of 2024. Also supported by the newly launched government program for medical equipment upgrades. It's important to note that our order book, which accounts for around 40% of group sales, remains strong and is further being built down to expected normalized levels. I've met many of our customers and partners in the last few months, and it's absolutely clear that we are a preferred strategic and innovation partner to provide imaging, therapy, and monitoring solutions, supported by a strong enterprise informatics and AI suite. This has been, again, amplified by how strongly our solutions resonated with customers at the recent VIVE, ECR, and HIMSS global healthcare events, which I attended during this quarter. Let me now provide you with some of the recent customer innovation milestones during the quarter. We launched the new Azurian image-guided therapy system and advanced informatics, as well as the new AI-enabled CT5300, designed for more accurate and reliable imaging results while enhancing productivity using up to 80% lower radiation dose. We were also recognized as a Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovator for the 11th consecutive year and ranked as a Top Medical Technology Patent Applicant at the European Patent Office in 2023. We continue to see strong customer pool for our solutions and signed several long-term agreements across the world in the quarter. For example, we signed a 10-year agreement with the Nicholas Children's Health System in the US to provide AI-enabled technologies such as helium-free, MR, ultrasound, and monitoring solutions for deeper clinical insights and improved workflow and productivity. Now on Respironics. As I said, we have taken very important steps in resolving the consequences of the Respironics recall in the quarter. As said before, we do regret the concern that patients may have experienced. Let me call out the milestones reached. First, Phillip's and plaintiff's leadership, supported by a court-appointed mediator, have reached an agreement that resolves the personal injury litigation at a medical monitoring class action in the US. This settlement ends the uncertainty associated with litigation in the US. It should be noted that Philips and Philips Respironics do not admit any fault or liability or that any injuries were caused by Respironics devices. Philips Respironics has agreed to pay a total kept amount of $1.1 billion. The related payments are expected in 2025 and to be fully funded from Phillip's cash flow generation. You will find more details of the agreement in the Respironics field action deck published on our investor relations website this morning, which underscores the high degree of confidence from all parties in achieving closure and finality with the settlement. Also important, earlier this month, the Phillips Respironics Consent Decree was approved by U.S. court. As communicated before, the decree primarily focuses on Respironics business operations in the U.S., and we now have made a roadmap to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements in order to restore the business in the U.S. and grow outside of the U.S. Moreover, Phillips Respironics obtained the final court approval for a previously announced economic less settlement in the U.S., for which a provision was recognized in Q1 2023. We continued to work on other Philips Respironics-related legal proceedings, including the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. And we also concluded an agreement with insurers to pay Philips in relation to Philips Respironics recall-related product liability claims. Following the remediation of sleep therapy devices and the reassuring test results to date, these important milestones on litigation, consent decree, and insurance provide Philips with a clear path forward for sustainable value creation. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our plan and financial outlook. In 2024, we expect to deliver 3% to 5% comparable sales growth, building on a strong comparison base of last year and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11 to 11.5%. The free cash flow expectation is now increased to 0.9 to 1.1 billion in 2024. Factor in the receipts from insurers that I just mentioned and the remaining payments related to the economic loss settlement. I will now hand it over to Abhijit to take us through the financials in more detail, after which I will come back on our execution priorities.

Thanks, Roy. Good morning, everyone. Let me start with our performance by segment. In diagnosis and treatment, comparable sales increased by 3%, driven by growth in precision diagnosis and image-guided therapy. And this was against strong double-digit growth in Q1 2023. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 9.2%, including an impact of 100 basis points from an accounts receivable provision. The adjusted EBITDA margin was lower than last year, mainly due to the normalization of the product mix as anticipated. To remind you, the increase in profitability in Q1 last year was around 600 basis points due to the easing of supply chain constraints on our most profitable modalities of ultrasound and image-guided therapy systems. Connected care comparable sales declined by 1%. as high single-digit growth in enterprise informatics was offset by negative sales growth in monitoring on the back of around mid-teens growth in Q1 2023. We saw strong growth in sleep systems and patient interface driven by performance outside of the U.S., while ventilator sales were lower. Connected care adjusted EBITDA margin improved significantly to 6.4%, driven by solid performance in monitoring and an improvement in sleep and respiratory care. Personal health delivered a 3% comparable sales increase, driven by strength in the personal care business. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the segment improved to 15.2% this quarter, mainly due to operational leverage and productivity. Geographically, sales in personal health was driven by mature geographies, while growth geographies were flat, mainly due to China. Overall consumer sentiment remains subdued, but is expected to improve in the course of 2024. Segment other sales increased by 25 million in the first quarter, mainly from higher royalty income due to phasing. We have been very disciplined in cost management, and our productivity initiatives delivered savings of 151 million in the quarter, of which operating model savings were 55 million, procurement savings were 40 million, and other productivity programs delivered 56 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the group increased by 80 basis points to 9.4% in the quarter, as our productivity and pricing actions more than offset inflation. Free cash was an outflow of $336 million in the quarter due to the normalization of working capital phasing, partly offset by higher cash earnings. On capital allocation, in April we completed the $1.5 billion share buyback program for capital reduction purposes announced on july 26 2021 in the second quarter we intend to cancel the 4.4 million shares acquired this year moving to orders it's important to note that the absolute order intake levels remain healthy although lower than the exceptionally high comparison base of the last two to three years order intake grew outside china with an encouraging performance in north america and general improvement in market dynamics, which is expected to continue in the coming quarters. Our funnel of opportunities remains strong. The order book is significantly higher than the period before the global supply chain crisis. As a reminder, orders and order book account for around 40% of our revenue. The remaining 60% comes mainly from recurring revenue streams such as services and consumables from book to build business and from personal health. As mentioned in our previous earnings call, we anticipate sales growth to be back and loaded in 2024 due to the tougher comparison base in the first half of the year, resulting mainly from the strong China performance in the first half of 2023, and the anti-corruption measures ongoing in the first half of this year. Our expectation for sales growth in the second quarter remains soft as a result of this difficult comparison base, as Q2 2023 grew by 9.4%, as well as the impact of the phasing of royalty revenues. We expect sales in segment others to be around 120 million euros in the second quarter, 75 million lower than in the second quarter of 2023 due to a large royalty deal recorded last year and the impact of royalty revenue phasing between the first and second quarter of 2024 that I just mentioned. This difference in royalty sales alone results in a negative impact of around 170 basis points on the growth of the group in the second quarter. Note that there is no change to full year outlook of segment other provided in January, both in terms of sales and adjusted EBITDA. Based on our order book, improving order intake and the ongoing actions to enhance execution, We expect to deliver 3 to 5% comparable sales growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 11 and 11.5 for the full year. As Roy mentioned, under the settlement to resolve the personal injury and medical monitoring litigation in the US, Philips Respironics has agreed to pay a total of $1.1 billion. The related payments are expected in 2025. and to be funded from Philips' cash flow generation. Moreover, we received the final court approval for the previously announced economic loss settlement in the US. At the time we announced the settlement in Q1, we recognized the provision of 575 million euros based on assumptions about the number of claimants that we expected to participate. Now a year later, based on the actual claims that we are seeing, these assumptions turn out to be accurate and we fully expect the settlement to stay within the amount provided for. This month, we also concluded an agreement with the insurers to pay us 540 million euros to cover Respironics recall related product liability claims. This income is expected to be recognized in Q2 2024 and payment is expected during 2024. As a result, we have increased our free cash flow outlook for this year to 0.9 to 1.1 billion, now including the payment from insurers as well as the cash out of around 430 million euros related to the remaining payment of the economic loss settlement. With that, I'd like to hand it back to Roy.

Thanks, Abhijit. I would like to continue with the progress we have made on our execution priorities. On patient safety and quality, we saw substantial improvement in kappa closures in the quarter, driven by stronger processes, capabilities, and governance around it. We also continue to drive significant simplification of the way we work and we further reduced the number of quality management systems. We are well on track to achieve our target of 65% reduction in 2024. And we continue to invest in quality improvement across the portfolio, acting fast on post-market surveillance signals. With respect to supply chain, we have now redesigned more than 80% of the planned PCBs and further reduced materials and component risks in the quarter. We will continue leveraging and regionalizing our end-to-end supply chain to further reduce lead times and strengthen first-time ride deliveries. Finally, our new operating model with prime accountability in the businesses has been live for a year now, resulting in significant productivity improvements. We have reduced over 8,500 roles to date. At the same time, we continue the culture journey to drive impact with care, and attracted over 300 talents with health tech backgrounds this quarter alone. Let me close out by repeating the key messages of today's announcement. First, we delivered results in line with our performance improvement plan as a result of continued strong focus and progress on our three execution priorities. Secondly, we have taken very important steps in resolving the vast majority of the consequences of the Respironics recall. And in this quarter alone, we had major milestones on litigation, consent decree, and insurance, providing further clarity on the way forward for Philips. Thirdly, the progress we are making reinforces our confidence to deliver further performance improvements in 2024, and we are on track with the plan for 2025. I would like to thank you for joining the call, and we will now take your questions.

Thank you, sir. If any participant would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by two times one on your telephone. Due to the time, please limit yourselves to one question. This will give more people the opportunity to ask questions. There will be a short pause while participants register for questions. We will now go to your first question. And your first question comes from the line of Richard Felton, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Congratulations on reaching the settlement. I've got two questions, both on fundamentals and margins, if that's OK. My first one is a question on precision diagnostics. So I understand last year that you were still facing some supply chain constraints on certain modalities. I think MRI in particular had been facing some challenges. So are those supply chain challenges normalizing for precision diagnostics and what does that mean for your margins for outlook for that subdivision this year? Second question on sleep and respiratory. Look, I understand that sleep and respiratory was still loss making in 2023. Now that you've got visibility on consent decree and I think better visibility on the outlook of the environment in which that business can operate moving forward, how quickly can you do the right sizing necessary to bring that business back to break even and then positive margin territory? Thank you.

Hey, Richard. Good morning. This is Abhijit. On the PD margins aspect, or maybe because we give diagnosis and treatment margins. Last year we had a big increase, as I mentioned just now in the speech as well, of 600 basis points. That was because we supplied in the first two quarters of last year a lot of our high, more profitable modalities. The supply chain constraints are now mostly gone. The last part that is left is on MRs. where we still have slightly longer lead times than we would like. That doesn't mean a lot for the margins. It just hampers order intake a little bit for the time being. And in the second half of the year, we should go past that. As far as the margins for DNT this year are concerned, we have said that we are going to grow margins this year. And the phasing between the first half and second half is distorted because of last year. So we will grow margins for the year, and you will see improvements coming in the second half over last year for diagnosis and treatment. For sleep and respiratory care, you're right. That's what we've always said, that once we get clarity on the CD, we will take cost actions to make this business a profitable business, even at a $1 billion revenue. I think the good news is that we are already profitable, so we have taken most of those cost actions, further actions to come, but already in Q1, we are profitable in sleep and respiratory care, which is why also you see the turnaround and the increase in connected care margins.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Hassan Alwakil from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. And it's great to see today's clarity on litigation. Firstly, can you talk about the remediation needed as part of the consent decree, as well as the remediation that you have been doing over the last couple of years? What do you think is a realistic timeline for your return to the U.S. market? Secondly, given clarity on litigation, could we see a return to bolt-on M&A in the next year or two? And if so, in which areas do you see the most opportunities or are you squarely focused on resolving and remediating quality issues at the company? And then finally, can you break out order growth in China and ex-China? How did things end the quarter and how are you viewing this quarter, both in China and outside of China? And I wonder if you expect orders to be positive in Q2 for the group, but also in China. Thank you.

Thank you, Hassan. Let me take the first question. So remediation, part of the CD. So I think, as we said, we are very happy that we now have clarity. In essence, we have a very clear roadmap in terms of what we need to do. to get back into the U.S. market. As you know, we are already providing patients in the U.S. with patient interfaces and also some respiratory devices, so it's not that we are fully out of that market, but to get fully back, of course, we need to comply with the remediation requirements as set in the CD, including the recall plan. Now, we haven't put a timeline out. We also will not speculate on that. We will, of course, work very hard to get there. We also are not starting now. We have indeed been actioning already on that earlier. As Abhijit said, if you look to the totality of SOC, we are growing outside of the U.S., and also we have been bringing it back into profitability, so the sleep and respiratory care business will show an improvement and contribution trajectory into Philips, which we are very positive about. But we will not put any specific timeline on any injunction because that also is in, of course, collaboration with the FDA that we need to achieve that. Secondly, on your question on the clarity that we get now also on cash and cash profile and both on M&A, as part of the plan that we started last year, I've been very clear how important cash generation is. Now, we were very happy with the $1.6 billion cash flow last year. Now we see that also this year we will have a strong cash flow profile of 1 billion. We upped it based upon the clarity we now have on the economic loss payment we need to do, but also the insurance inflow we have in the year and the litigation settlement we have today. We can actually pay out of our operational cash flow. That also means that we will indeed be able to do bolt-on acquisitions. Of course, those need to be the right ones, and we do kind of need to look at our own priorities first, meaning extracting value out of the current portfolio of assets that we have, because we have a lot of potential there. But that doesn't mean that if we see the right target, we could do that. and we will remain active. And, of course, if you then think of which areas, those will be areas where we are strong, either where it's an IGP domain, which we kind of see potential, but it could also be in monitoring or what we did as bold on acquisition in ultrasound, where we had a portfolio of AI solutions that we added there that actually will be coming to market as part of the innovation lounge in ultrasound actually mid this year. so that will also bolster our profile and our portfolio towards the market. Maybe order intake, Abhijit, you can take.

So I think, yeah, we had a decline in China in Q1, and that is what we expected. It was, yeah, in the high double digits because, you know, last year we had a growth of in the mid-30s last year, right? So you had mid-30s growth last year. That was with the incentives coming out of COVID, and then you had really the counterbalancing this year with the anti-corruption measures, which of course slowed things down. The good news, as Roy mentioned, you know, outside of China, we have returned to growth and most positively is that North America grew nicely for us in the quarter. We are not going to at this stage give specific numbers there because let's say that's not something that is even shared by our competitors, but I think we are pleased with the momentum in North America, and that also gives us the confidence for the remaining part of the year. We expect also China, as we said, to contribute in the second half of the year. Roy was in China recently, and with the new incentives that the government is planning to give, that should give, let's say, good impetus. So overall, I think there's no change in our view on China. It fundamentally remains an attractive market. For the short term, consumer sentiment is subdued. We expect that to improve through the year. Hospitals will continue to work through the industry-wide anti-corruption measures, and then we expect to see more hospitals putting in orders. So therefore, the second half we expect China to contribute, and so far we've kind of started the year on plan.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Asma.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David Adlington from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So first one, Abhijit, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that there was a 100 basis point hit to the D&T margin, I think, from a provision. Just wondered if we could get some more color around that, please. And then secondly, just in terms of the cost savings, you delivered 151 million, I think, in the first quarter year on year, but your adjusted EBITR was only up to 30. I just wondered where you're reinvesting some of those savings or whether they are being eaten up by headwinds elsewhere. And then the final one is just, now you've got more clarity on the cash, just wondered if you were planning to reinstate the cash dividends. Thanks.

Yeah, so I think a couple of things. So let's say we... The 100 basis points I talked about was that was a provision for a receivable with a certain customer. So it's not an operational performance in a factory or anything to do with the cost structure of the business, but just a part provision on a receivable with a particular customer. I think if you look at the... overall productivity of course in that you know that productivity is compensating for our cost inflation so you will see that you know we have a bridge in the deck on on slide 13 where you see you know two percent is going towards cost inflation that is a negative therefore you don't see all of it back but you see a significant portion and then the Part that I mentioned, the 100 bips on DNT, of course, has an overall impact on Philips as well. On cash dividend, I think it's a bit too early to comment now. So let's first get through this year and then at the end of the year, we will decide on how we will deal with our dividend for next year. But as Roy mentioned, the good news is that we can deal with our cash obligations with regard to the litigation from our operating cash flow. and that also gets us, let's say, very close to our targeted leverage next year, which would be actually a very good performance after paying off all the fines.

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Veronica Tabojova from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please, if I can. The first one is just, Abhijit, you sort of alluded to this, but the margin progression that you expect in D&T in particular through the year, if you could outline a little bit sort of how we should be thinking about that. I think we've talked about the sort of maybe 50 basis points or more margin improvement for the full year. Do you still expect margins to be down in the second quarter? And then I guess, is the improvement in the back half of the year particularly pronounced in Q3 versus Q4? Just because last year was such an unusual year. If you could help us understand that and maybe just a comment on growth as well for DMT. And then I have a separate question on the settlement announced this morning. And just to maybe... give us all reassurance. I guess we'd love to understand, you know, to what extent there are kind of exceptions. So is this all encompassing? Does it include situations like death as well as injury? Just if you can talk to sort of what are some of the instances where you could see separate litigation that is outside of the scope of the settlement? And then to finalize the settlement, what are the steps that are remaining both in terms of the courts and discussions with the plaintiffs? And when can we sort of consider this completely done and dusted? That would be some color around that would be very helpful. Thank you, guys.

Hi, Veronica. Good morning. Let me take the first question and then I pass it on to Roy for the second one. So, you know, the first two quarters of last year, we had very strong improvement in the margins of DNT. If I remember right, in quarter one was 600 basis points. First half of the year was 500 basis points. And we said at that time itself that that's a bit of an unusual pattern. So for this year, the way you should read it is that we will improve in the second half. And the first half will be lower. So including Q2 will be lower than last year. But then Q3, Q4, you will see the improvements and then you see the improvement for the full year. Important to note that the guided range for 2025 is low teams. We are already in that range. So we will make further progress into the range this year and then progress in the range next year as well. So we are on a good track with BNT. On the litigation, maybe Roy?

Yeah, let me take that one. Thank you. I think important question on indeed this finality. I think we are very firm that we believe that for the US, this is as final as it can get. The settlement addresses all the 60,000 known claimants as part of the census registry, including the 700 filed cases that were active. We do not believe that there is a meaningful number of plaintiffs out there that will still come forward. That's also the view of the plaintiffs themselves. And if they do, they will be subject to a so-called lone pine order, which requires them to bring forward their full case at once, or else they will be dismissed, and also they will need to come forward with all their individual evidence, as everything that was gathered as part of this process now will cease to exist. There are six months that actually people can still come forward. After the six months, actually the whole class action or the whole MDL ceased to exist. And that's also why it was important that this was court approved, or not yet court approved, but there was a mediator from the court that actually was part of this whole process. She has been very, I think, affirmative of this deal. You also saw that in our announcement. She will also make sure that this will be going through the court proceedings. Now, we don't know exactly when that will be, but we don't expect that it will take too long, and so we are actually very confident that this will really put an end to this, and that's very important because then with ending economic loss, economic personal injury, and medical monitoring, we really have put the vast majority of these cases behind us with finality and clarity, and therefore this provides us with a way forward in which we can focus on really running the business and growing Philips and bringing it back to where it belongs.

That's very clear, Roy. Thank you. And can I just ask a follow-up on the DOJ? And I guess if you have any updates on where you're there with the process and when we might expect similar finality on the discussions with them.

Yeah, no, DOJ, I think there's not a lot we can say. This is still ongoing. We are in full collaboration, have been providing them documents. So actually, I cannot further comment on that process. We will come forward once we have any further clarity on that. I cannot say more than this is currently still in process.

Excellent. Great. Thanks, guys, so much.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Hugo Salve from Exambi and Pipariba. Please go ahead.

Hi, hello. Thanks for taking my questions. I hope that's okay. First, on DNT, can you maybe, Abhijit, elaborate a bit more on the region and the modality from that customer and the provision passed for DNT that is having a 100 basis point impact on the margin that would be helpful? And on the warning letter in your CT China plan, could this impact the rollout of your new instrument? Second, on China, does the stimulus plan in China is already reflected into the guide for 2024 for DLT? And lastly, maybe Roy, a follow-up on Veronica's question earlier. Can you update us on settlement, possible settlement in ex-US litigation, so outside of the US? Thank you.

Maybe, Hugo, could you repeat your question on China, please?

On China, the possible impact from the stimulus, is it reflected already in your guidance or in your expectations for G&T and the acceleration for the rest of the year?

Okay. So first, on the provision, yeah, we cannot give, of course, details in public. That's between us and the customer. So even for privacy reasons, we cannot disclose that. I think on China, you can... Make it reasonably simple, yes. That is part of our guidance. We had anticipated that there would be a recovery in China. The stimulus only substantiates that expectation, so it is part of our overall guidance for the year.

Maybe take me to the question on the China warning letter. I think you also referred to that. I think we are working fully through the kind of follow-up actions with the FDA on it. We don't expect any current operational impact from that. This process remediation, of course, we take it very serious, like we take any finding that comes out of any site visit. There are two findings, both related to process compliance. There were no reports of patient harm, so I think And it's important to also mention that, and we do not see any kind of impact from it. In terms of settlement ex-US, I think it's important that that's also why there's such a breakthrough this quarter, that actually this is by far the vast majority of cases. Secondly, what is very important, that we do not admit any guilt as part of the settlement, neither towards patients or diseases. Also, we refer to CARFA, the earlier testing that showed that no appreciable harm was done. So also, we look for confidence to any cases outside of the U.S. that still might happen, that we bring that to good conclusion. But as said before, the most important is that the vast majority of cases was in the U.S., and also, as we all know, the U.S. legal system is in a particular way, and that's why it was so important to end the uncertainty and create clarity on the way forward by getting a settlement on this specific case in the US.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of... One moment, please. Graham Doyle, UBS. Please go ahead.

morning guys hope you can hear me and thanks taking these questions just two from me and first obviously congratulations on the settlement I think that's a lot of clarity that probably clearly sooner than people were expecting and just one in sort of vague relation to that Roy when you look at the P&L for the last few years and I suspect even the next couple of years there's obviously a lot of adjustments and cash charges and things like that is that the next focus once we get through the next year or two to sort of square that so that your reported and adjusted EBIT won't be so different going forward and kind of lift that cash generation up as we go forward. That's just question number one. And question number two, you actually gave us really good insight in terms of explaining how the unlock or the improvement in China was occurring as these investigations progressed and you had these sort of regional committees set up. And could you give us another update as to how you're seeing that and is everything still tracking as you'd expect? And what does that mean in terms of order flow, even sequentially, say Q1 versus Q4, just to get a sense of how well things are moving in China? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Graeme. I think good questions. So on the first, I think we for sure recognize that, of course, we had significant hits into the P&L that went into headlines towards adjusted items. Now, also the clarity of today helps to actually further provide guidance around the adjusted items going forward. We had many of the adjusted items in the last years that were unfortunately tied to the recall, as you know, so that has been really significantly impacting it. Now, as we have the vast majority of recall now behind us, we remediated the sleep therapy devices. We have kind of clarity on the settlements as we've now been providing for that really will allow us to kind of really bring that number substantially down. We also, of course, took restructuring to get productivity in. You also have seen that contribution into our margin improvement. But also there, as you have seen, we are well on track with the 8,500 rolls that we reduced by now. That does mean that we still have 1,000 approximately remaining. So there will be some restructuring that will come with that. And we also, as Abhijit said, keep working SRC to get that into the best possible shape. So there's still some of that to come, but it will be of different dimensions than the unfortunate big numbers we have seen. So that is for sure a focus. Then secondly, in terms of China, I was actually in China a month ago. I've been talking to the vice president myself, of course, talking to a lot of customers and looking at the situation on the ground. And I saw two parts of the story. One was a continued impact from these anti-corruption industry measures that were taken by the government. And as I said before, they are working through this. They're doing that region by region, but it is not done yet. And that we said already when we came into the year, we still see that also therefore impacting as we speak. Our expectation is unchanged that actually we do expect that towards the second half of the year, we will see real improvement coming in, but it's too early actually in the first half to really count on that. And that's also something that we of course saw happening in the first quarter. No, I think the positive for me was this new stimulus program because that indeed was not yet there. And I also learned more about that. They're specifically targeting to give subsidy to hospitals that can come forward to upgrade their installed base that is aged. And we also have seen customers putting in their requests. Of course, it will take time before they have kind of worked through those lists, approve it, and the market will benefit from it. That's also why we say this will benefit the mid- to long-term attractiveness of the market because it will just help accelerate some of the replacement orders that will come into play when the market opens up more.

Brilliant. That's very clear. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Julianne Dunois from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi.

Good morning, Roy. Good morning, Abhijit. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the settlement. The first one relates to the midterm outlook. There was no confirmation of the midterm outlook in your material unless I missed it. So is this an indication that maybe you are currently reviewing it? And especially now that you have more clarity on Respironics, that maybe that could lead to an upgrade on that side. My second question is more of a housekeeping one on the order book. just to better understand what was the split in the order book between DNT and CC in the first quarter. I mean, last year, obviously, there was a very diverging trend. So just trying to understand whether we're talking about maybe a double-digit decline in DNT and some growth in CC in the first quarter of 2024. And my last question, sorry. Last question is on the the the growth in the US in the quarter you basically had zero person growth in the US. So just trying to better understand which division was the most impacted and how we should think about the US into the remaining quarters of 2024. Thank you very much.

Hi, Julian. Regarding the mid-term outlook, I think you missed it. So it is in the outlook. If you look at our press release, the first sentence in the outlook says we reiterate our confidence in delivering the 2025 plan. So that is already there. It's already there also in the company deck, etc. So we have reconfirmed our outlook for 2025. And you said whether there's an upgrade post the litigation. If you remember when we gave the guidance, we had excluded litigation related charges. So we've not only confirmed the outlook for the midterm plan, but also for this year, right? So both of them have been done and we have upped our cash flow guidance for the year. Your second question on the order book, I think, yeah, it was, I guess split between both of them, so I don't want to go into all regional and other differences, but this was, let's say, overall impacted mainly by China. So, you know, rather than modalities, I think the big thing to realize is that the impact was really from China. And China, the bulk of the business is in DNT, so therefore the impact on DNT is slightly higher than CCE. And for the U.S., in terms of sales, I think the main reason there is the comps compared to last year because we went off the blocks with a huge growth last year in Q1. And that's what makes it difficult in terms of the comps for this year. And that was largely, as I mentioned earlier, ultrasound and IGT.

Okay, thanks. Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Julian Awador from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking my question. So the first one, I just want to come back on the settlement. what's the likelihood of new claims surface after the six months period for the plaintiff to sign up for the settlement? And just maybe if you can explain us how difficult it might be for them to get a compensation and if we need basically to add a sort of margin of safety on top of the 1.1 billion for these cases. Then the second question on orders. So you seem to be pretty pleased with the momentum in the US. And I think at the beginning of the year, you said that, I mean, orders will be strong in the US because financing conditions will become a bit more easy for the year with interest rate cuts. It seems we are more going in a situation where interest rate cuts are not going to happen before the end of the year. Could it impact the demand at some point in the US? And the final question is about China. So a follow-up about the comment that you made. Do you have any sort of color about the install-based age in China? Because it seems that the install-based age been upgraded in the recent years, so the overall age is a bit lower today. And if you can just give us a bit more color, but the real benefit from the stimulus that you think could happen. Thanks.

Yeah, thank you, Julian. Good questions. Let me start with the first one, settlement. So the likelihood of new claims coming after six months. So I think it's important, as we said, that actually we believe that

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Okay. I'm not sure whether you heard me in full, but so let me kind of repeat the essence. So firstly, we said kind of we believe really this puts finality to what is out there. That is also not only our opinion, but also of the plaintiff's leadership. They actually advertised for three years the case. So actually, they believe that the majority of people that know the case was there actually have stepped forward are in the census registry. The 60,000, as you know, but then also 700 kind of claimants. Then they have another six months they can come forward. Thereafter, the whole case ceased to exist. So the MDL will be closed. Also, all the preparatory work that was done by all the plaintiff lawyers will cease to exist. Therefore, any individual that comes thereafter will have to come on individual terms. They will be subject to a loan plan order. Loan plan order means that there are certain criteria that you need to fulfill before you even can be taken into the case. You will not have access to any of the expert reports that was made. or were made so you need to do it yourself and as you know kind of only for the testing we spent millions of dollars to get to our outcome which showed that no appreciable harm was done and that's also still standing as we have not admitted any guilt and they are also subject to time restrictions because there's a statute of limitations and that actually is from the starting of the recall so from 2021 onwards and normally these are periods of two to three years And finally, if you look to the trending of the census registry, it has been stable for months already. So actually, we have seen that there was no significant info already coming lately. So taking all this together, yeah, there's a very strong confidence that we have that actually we have been dealing with the cases out there and this truly will put an end to the personal injury and the medical monitoring claims in the US and also the economic lost settlement as you have seen before we reiterated actually the provision we took was enough even now after a year so that was also I think well counted for and we expect the same with this one then on the order intake momentum in the US it's I think you're fair to say that maybe interest will not kind of move as we expected earlier But at the same time, we have seen that the system itself is strengthening in terms of the patient throughput and therefore the income they are generating. And that also has been strengthening their investments. As we said also in our order intake, that's something where we see that our innovations that we have been putting out to the market and have been out there at HIMSS, at VIVE, a lot of excitement about what we are offering in terms of our workflow solutions. We announced the CT5300 AI suite that's actually putting out to the market the new IGT Azurian solution for stroke. So we are confident that actually the U.S. market will show continued strength throughout the year, and that is unchanged. Then on the installed base age in China, I think it's fair to say that they have a backlog in upgrades. also, especially in a prolonged period of COVID. That's why we did see actually 2023, when they came off COVID, a lot of investments coming into play. That's what's spurring last year's very strong Q1 order growth. And we expect that also will therefore continue once the market opens up more. Now, even further now, kind of encouraged by the Chinese government that also want to, I think, support the investments to get the installed base to be replaced. but also for them as an expansion program, as they also need to take care of more patients. So it's a combination that we expect to come into play later into China.

Thanks. Thanks a lot Roy. Any, like any idea about just like the age of the installed base in China at the moment?

No, I would not be able to give a specific number. What I do know is that kind of that it qualifies for equipment of six and eight year of age. so that's kind of the the conditions that they have put out the government and that's kind of where they have the current the what the customers are currently putting forward perfect thank you very much very helpful thank you your next question comes from the line of Robert Davis from Morgan Stanley please please go ahead

Thanks for taking my questions. Most of them have been covered. I have a few left. You mentioned the normalization of the order book overall, but it's still elevated versus pre-COVID levels. How do you think about that delivery timeline? How quickly is that going to catch up? Is that a Part of your kind of confidence in the second half numbers is a kind of accelerated delivery of that order book through H2. And should we be at a kind of normal run rate on the order book by the end of the year? That was my first question. My second question was on the EBITDA bridge you provided with the cost headwinds against productivity and pricing measures, which were obviously net positive. Just be curious, within those productivity and pricing measures, how much of that came from headcount reductions? I guess my question is really, As the headcount reductions tail off, are you still confident to get a net benefit of cost versus productivity going forward? And then finally, just if you could flash out in a little bit more detail some of the different regional trends you're seeing across the personal health business. I know you called out consumer weakness in China, but perhaps across some of the other markets. I'd be interested. Thank you.

Yeah, hi, Robert. Regarding the normalization of order book, I think you're right. The confidence in the second half comes from the fact that we expect deliveries to take place in the second half, and therefore that normalization should happen by the end of the year. Maybe we will still be a tad higher at the end of the year, but not as high as we are now. So that should kind of bleed through the second half. from the headcount reduction I mentioned in the speech that operating model savings were I think 55 million in the quarter so it's still significant because we had just started let's say last year in Q1 with the reduction so there is still quite some more to come throughout the year and then I can take the on the pH so if you look to the globe I think what we've seen is that China indeed subdued

We see actually quite strong rebounds in Europe. So actually we saw some strengthening in Europe. We also think that's on the back of some of the wage increases that have been put out there. So you see consumer have more to spend and we have been benefiting from that also in the growth markets. I think the other market that is not yet as strong as we would like is North America. We do see the sellout strengthening, but not yet fully kind of the sell-in. We also know that actually customers have been reducing their inventory levels, so they're pretty tight on their cash management as well, so therefore actually it makes shorter lines. So in sum, I would say globally we expect that consumer will strengthen throughout the year, and also in terms of that, towards the guidance, we expect they will be also towards that guidance of 3% to 5%, and now starting with 3%, that should actually through the year increase. But that will also be on the back of China, which second half will have the most, I think, contribution into that.

That's great. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take your next question. And your next question comes from the line of from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the presentation and taking my questions. And congrats on the settlement. One question on the insurance claims. Can you give us a color on how these insurances work and whether your premiums for insurance are likely to go up after the payout and do you have the same kind of insurance on product liability in all of your products? And my second question relates to Connective care going forward, you mentioned you're growing quite a bit in Japan, which is normally a lower margin market, but in this case you mentioned that the leasing model makes it more attractive. Do you have any other factors that will create a different margin outlook for connective care going forward? Thanks.

No, regarding insurance claims, yeah, it's a bit of speculation now whether it will go up or not. So that's something we will see in the next round. Because, you know, it's the first time we are claiming such large amounts. It's not that we have a long history of claims. So we will have to see how those discussions go. But also, you know, the actions that we are taking to improve quality, et cetera, should have, will be part of those discussions. Regarding connected care in Japan, it is not a low margin market, so I just want to correct that. We have a very strong sleep and respiratory care business that operates on a recurring revenue basis, so that also drives margins. As far as Japan is concerned, let's say the core of the underlying business still remains very strong.

Thanks very much. As a follow-up, may I ask, like, usually what's the term of insurances? Like, do you conclude insurance agreements on a yearly premium, or are we looking more on a multi-year basis?

Yeah, it depends on each policy differs, so I think that would be too much of detail to put, but, you know, there are policies which you have three-year terms, one-year terms, et cetera, so each one of them differs.

But I think it's important we have these insurances for all our products. So it's actually an ongoing and common business. So I think that's also how this will be seen. This is part of a long-term kind of insurance transaction that we have out there.

Perfect. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Falko Friedrichs, Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I have two clarification questions on the finality of the settlement agreement here. Firstly, can you confirm that there is no chance of a court trial now? So essentially, can anyone in the census registry, can anyone still bring their case to court or is that essentially impossible now under the agreement? And then secondly, on these additional testing programs you're running according to the FDA requests. First of all, are they going as planned? And then in case those additional tests go against you, right, and let's just say they show a potential harm to patients, could that put anything with this framework you put in place at risk or could that open up a new avenue for plaintiff lawyers A little bit more clarification there would also be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, Falco, thank you. To clarify further, so in terms of the court trial, so the MDL will not be pursued. So the Census Registry and the MDL will be terminated. So they cannot kind of pursue further trials out of the current MDL or Census Registry. What could happen is that people individually would like to come forward and still go on an individual case. But as we said, even for those, there will be very high barriers to do so because it will be stand-alone. They will need to adhere to the loan plan order. They will need to come up with their own expert reports, kind of to show whatever causality they want to show. And we have our own testing, as you know, that shows no appreciable harm. And there is time limitations towards the time that they can do this. That's why we are... very confident on the finality as we said before. I think also what is important on the testing, there is no correlation at all between the testing and finality of this case. So any further outcome in testing will not have any impact on the current settlement. Settlement is as is. The amount is capped and final and there will be no testing related to this.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Wim Gill from ABN Almoro Odo BHF. Please go ahead.

Yes, very good morning. This is Wim Gill from ABN Odo. Two questions from my end. First, on the 540 million to be received from the insurers, for the Respironix claims, to which part of the recall is this exactly related? Is this the physical recall cost? Is it the economic loss part? Is it the personal injury part? Or is it the total issue? And are any other insurance related discussions ongoing? And then the second question would be on the legal sabre battling that you have with Soclean. Can you give us a bit indication what the expected timelines are? and what the range of outcomes is, if any. Thanks.

Yeah, so the insurance is not for the recall cost, but everything outside of that, so the whole list you gave. So it does not cover the recall cost, but of course the product liabilities, the personal injury monitoring, all of that. The second question you had was on SoClean.

Yeah, so maybe I can take it. So there's no timeline that we can give to that. Of course, that is still in process. Therefore, also, it's kind of too preliminary to give a range of outcome for the SoClean case. So I think this is something that is ongoing, and we will keep you posted on any contribution that might flow from there. And that's, I think, as much as we can say now.

And you've asked whether there are other insurance things that we are pursuing. The answer is no. This is the only one. We had indicated that last year we have been exactly in line with the estimates, and now that has ended up in a signed deal, and now the cash will flow this year.

Perfect. And maybe as a follow-up on the SoClean thing, because if memory serves me well, SoClean was also included in the, it was not a class action, but the, let's say, the MDL that you have today. So did anything come out of that or is there nothing that really touched them at this point in time?

No, it's a separate MDL. So there's currently no impact from that.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Due to the time, the last question comes from the line of Ed Ridley Day of Redburn Atlantic. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. And I'd add my congratulations to the execution of the settlement. Just a few follow ups. On the patient monitoring, Clearly, you had strong comps for a number of quarters from last year. Should we see patient monitoring growing in fiscal 24? Is that possible? And if you could provide some color on that, that would be helpful. And if you could also provide any color on the ultrasound business growth within the quarter and how that relates to market growth, that would also be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, so to be on monitoring, we do see growth this year. So there is no, let's say we have no doubts. Like I said, you know, Q1, we had tough comms last year. So therefore, and in terms of ultrasound, also we had, I think if I remember from top of my head, in the 30s growth, in the 30% plus growth in Q1. So therefore, Q1, This year is of course a slight decline, but very slight. And the good news is that we have quite some innovation coming in ultrasound, which is launching as we speak. So we really expect to gain good momentum on top of a very strong last year to continue that momentum this year as well. So we will continue to gain share there.

Thank you for that.

Thank you. Thank you. Gentlemen, that was the last question. I will now hand back to Mr. Jacobs for any points you may still like to raise.

Thank you all for your questions. Much appreciated. Let me close out by just repeating once more the key messages of today's announcement. First of all, we delivered results in line with our performance improvement plan for the first quarter as a result of strong continued focus on our execution. Secondly, very important steps taken in resolving the consequences of the Respironics recall in the quarter, with major milestones on litigation, on consent decree, and on insurance, which provides clarity on the way forward for Philips. And thirdly, the progress we are making reinforces our confidence to deliver further performance improvement in 2024, and we are on track with the plan for 2025. Thank you all for listening. Have a great day.

Thank you. This concludes the Royal Philips First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call on Monday 29th April 2024. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.