Waters Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the Waters Corporation fourth quarter 2022 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a listen only mode until the question and answer session of today's call. This conference is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, please disconnect it this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Casper Tudor, head of investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Catherine. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Waters Corporation fourth quarter earnings call. We are very pleased to be speaking to you from Santa Barbara this morning, where Wired Technology is located. We have a lot to cover today, given our earnings results and our exciting announcement. Today, I am joined by Dr. Udit Batra, Waters President and Chief Executive Officer, and Amol Charbel, Waters Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We are also glad to be joined by Wyatt Technologies Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Wyatt, as well as its President, Cliff Wyatt. Now, before we begin, I will cover the cautionary language. In this conference call, we will make various forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. In particular, we will provide guidance regarding future, possible results, and commentary on potential market and business conditions, including with respect to the announced transaction with Wyatt that may impact Waters Corporation over the first quarter of 2023, full year 2023, and 2024. These statements are only our present expectations, and actual events or results may differ materially. For more details, please see the risk factors included in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, our Form 10-Qs, and the cautionary language included in this morning's earnings release. During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including in our discussions of the results of operations. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are attached to our earnings release issued this morning and in the appendix of our presentation, which were available on the company's website. Unless stated otherwise, references to quarterly results increasing or decreasing are in comparison to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. In addition, unless stated otherwise, all year-over-the-year revenue growth rates and ranges given on today's call are given on a comparable constant currency basis. Finally, we do not intend to update our predictions or projections except as part of a regularly scheduled costly earnings release or as otherwise required by law. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Udit Bhatia.

Udit? Thank you, Kasper, and good morning, everyone. Before diving in, I would like to extend our thoughts and our prayers to the thousands of those who are affected in Turkey and Syria by the earthquakes. Today marks a major milestone in accelerating value creation for our customers and shareholders as we progress to the next step in the execution of our strategy. This morning, we made the exciting announcement that Viya Technology, the recognized leader in light scattering, will be joining forces with Waters. bringing with it a fast-growing, attractive business with key capabilities to accelerate our 1.8 billion double-digit growth opportunity in bioprocess characterization. More than 40 years ago, Wyatt was the first to commercialize light scattering instruments, incorporating lasers as their light source. Ever since, they've defined and redefined state-of-the-art light scattering instrumentation, software, and services. Along the way, They've also added several related technologies, including dynamic light scattering, viscometry, refractometry, and field probe fractionation. Together, their innovative products are used to determine the properties of novel therapeutics, such as cell and gene therapy, vaccines, and proteins, as well as synthetic polymers and nanoparticles. Wyatt was the top asset and priority we identified for bioanalytical characterization, making the acquisition a significant step forward in this high growth adjacency. I would like to take this opportunity to invite Jeff and Cliff to say a few words about this exciting combination.