STERIS plc

Good day and welcome to the Staris PLC fourth quarter 2024 conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Julie Winter of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chuck, and good morning, everyone. As usual, on today's call, we will have Mike Tokich, our Senior Vice President and CFO, and Dan Carestio, our President and CEO. And I do have a few words of caution before we open for comments. This webcast contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call without the express written consent of Staris is strictly prohibited. Some of the statements made during this review are, or may be considered, forward-looking statements. Many important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those risk factors described in Staris' securities filings. The company does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments. JARIS's SEC filings are available through the company and on our website. In addition, on today's call, non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted earnings per diluted share, adjusted operating income, constant currency organic revenue growth, and free cash flow will be used. Additional information regarding these measures, including definitions, is available in our release, as well as reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures are presented during this call with the intent of providing greater transparency to supplemental financial information used by management and the board of directors in their financial analysis and operational decision making. With those questions, I will hand the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone. It is once again my pleasure to be with you this morning to review the highlights of our performance. As you saw in the press release, we finished the year strong with total revenue growth of 10% in the fourth quarter and constant currency organic revenue growth of 6%. Adjusted earnings per diluted share for the fourth quarter were $2.58. For the full year, we exceeded expectations with 12% total revenue growth and constant currency organic revenue growth of 9%. Adjusted earnings per diluted share total $8.83, exceeding our outlook. With the announcement of the divestiture of the dental segment, we are required to report results from continuing operations starting now. As a result, the rest of our comments today will be focused on results from continuing operations. Contained within the numerous press release tables, you will find an eight-quarter recast of results from continuing and discontinued operations to help with year-over-year comparisons. Turning to continuing operations, fourth quarter constant currency organic revenue grew 7 percent, driven by volume, as well as 240 basis points of price. This is impressive when compared to the strong fourth quarter last year. Once again, our healthcare segment exceeded expectations. During the quarter, healthcare shipped a record $332 million in capital equipment. Gross margin for the quarter declined 80 basis points compared to the prior year to 42.6%. Positive price and productivity were more than offset by negative segment mix and increased materials and labor costs. EBIT margin decreased 30 basis points to 23.7% of revenue compared with the fourth quarter last year. the operating income mix shift between healthcare and AST once again impacted our margins. The adjusted effective tax rate in the quarter was 21.4%, lower than we anticipated due to several favorable discrete item adjustments. Net income from continuing operations in the quarter was $240.5 million, and adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations were $2.41. Capital expenditures for fiscal 2024 total $360 million, while depreciation and amortization total $565 million. Total debt sits at $3.2 billion, and our total debt to EBITDA at quarter end was approximately 2.1 times gross leverage. Free cash flow for fiscal 2024 was $620 million, as we benefited from higher generation from cash from operations including less use of cash for working capital requirements. With that, I will turn the call over to Dan for his remarks.