Bruker Corporation (BRKR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Good afternoon, everybody. It's Doug Schenkel again from the Tools Diagnostics and Labs team here at Wolfe Research. It's my pleasure to welcome Gerald Herman, the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Bruker. Gerald, thanks for being here today.

Thank you to be here.

So in terms of just agenda, I thought we would start by spending a few minutes with kind of what we've been doing all day, state of the union on Bruker, what's going on with the company, what's going well, what could go better as we think about what's been a difficult year for the group and then how you're thinking about some of the recent events subsequent to the election, recognizing we don't know a lot, and it's only been a few days. So I figured we would start there, then we would move on from that, talk about end markets, capital deployment and then probably a little bit of 2025 as much as we can, but really thinking about the LRP and the longer-term outlook for the business, which I still think is really, really attractive regardless of what's going in the -- going on in the world. Right now. So with that, it's hard to believe. I think you've been at Bruker. Is it 6 years now?

Yes.

So this is...

Coming up to 7.

Is it coming up on 7. So recognizing '24 has been a tough year for the group. This has actually been a really good run for Bruker if we think about the last several years. And I actually started working as a junior analyst working for Sarah Mitchell Moore 20 something years ago. And Bruker was one of the first companies I worked on. And listen, a lot of the science is well above my capabilities and my pay grade, but I was really amazed by what Bruker was capable of doing. I was impressed by what I would hear from folks who would buy and use Bruker equipment. There was no question about the scientific differentiation at the company, the level of innovation. Frank and the team are brilliant. What has been -- or what was lacking for probably at least the first half of me paying attention to Bruker, was consistent operating discipline. And there were efforts to bring that to the company, but it never really took over a consistent period of time until you got there. So that's been really impressive to see. So again, acknowledging it's been a tough period over the last couple of quarters. Bruker has been really differentiated over the last several years in terms of through a tough period, being able to grow, being able to invest, being able to innovate and actually generating solid margins and solid free cash flow. So with all that said, and sorry to ramble on there a little bit, what do you think has been different this time? And how should we think the sustainable -- how -- like what -- like if this is Bruker 2.0, 3.0, whatever it is, what's been different? And how should we think about the durability of this moving forward?

Yes. So thank you for the intro. I would say, generally speaking, if you look back over the last 3-plus years, the company has delivered organic revenue growth in the double-digit category. It's generally speaking, exceeded our peers. We've been taking leading market positions in most of the product categories that we're in. I would say the quarters that we've seen over the last, say, year or so have been pretty impressive. I look at the third quarter, for example, of 2023, where we posted 11% organic revenue growth. The fourth quarter, we put up almost 16% organic revenue growth. And against those comps, we're still delivering growth, which I know some of our peers are delivering growth against a very, very weak comps. So I think if you look at a 2-year stack growth chart for Q3, for example, you're in the high end of the range of our medium-term outlook framework. So even in more challenging conditions, as I would say, market conditions were still delivering really solid growth on top of very strong growth. Looking forward, I think when we -- as you likely know, we adjusted our guidance in the third quarter, and we did that because we saw some softness or deeper softness in the China marketplace. And that represented a significant amount of that softness. But then beyond that, we began to see some further softness in the biopharma space. After a couple of quarters of good order bookings performance in biopharma, the third quarter was weak and we saw a similar profile for the fourth quarter. So this dynamic not necessarily foreign to us. We've seen some of the markets we play in a number of interesting dynamic end markets. And I think biopharma and China are going to recover. I need to be clear about that. We have -- we can talk a little bit more about the end market conditions, but we do have some bright spots, in particular, industrial applied, our cleantech business, our semi business performed extremely well. And even if you carve off a little of the U.S. uncertainty, the academic, government, research markets more broadly across many of non-U.S. markets were quite solid. So going forward, I think the question for us is largely how quickly do we see a recovery in the biopharma markets and quite honestly, where is China going? When is the China stimulus program expected to really fully kick in? And how does it feel for GDP economic performance for China in the future. So I think that's the broad picture for us. Good strong growth. We feel very good about where we stand right now in terms of the product portfolio. And our ability to actually deliver the growth going forward. And on the operating margin, we should probably talk about that as kind of a separate topic and EPS going forward because I think, we had a year or so of dilution related to some strategic acquisitions we completed. And fundamentally, we're quite excited about those acquisitions. And generally speaking, we expect those to contribute significantly to the growth going forward.

Super helpful. One quick follow-up. Building off of all of that. A lot of what has changed seems like it's not Bruker specific. It's -- the markets have changed, things haven't improved at the pace that some would have hoped. But nothing has changed. It sounds like, in how you view the company's ability at this point in terms of being a leading innovator and balancing the ability to continue to improve free cash flow and margins.

Yes. I mean, I think generally speaking, if you look at our organic operating margin expansion over the last few years, it's stellar. I mean we're talking 75 to 100 basis points of organic. Some of that is getting absorbed at the moment in dilutive -- more dilutive strategic acquisitions. But as we've publicly talked about, we're $0.15 to $0.20, dilutive on the EPS line from these acquisitions in '24. We expect to be $0.08 to $0.10 in '25. We expect to be neutral or accretive in '26 on those acquisitions. So the operating margin story and the EPS story is going to continue to improve over the next year, 1.5 years. And so I'm pretty positive about that.

In a lot of ways, it sounds like when we think about the LRP outlined earlier this year. Obviously, relative to what was on the slide, things have changed in terms of how you're thinking about '25. But on a multiyear basis, it doesn't sound like you feel drastically different or different at all?

We'll talk more of the medium-term outlook as we march forward into '25. But fundamentally, there may be -- there's a different path...

It doesn't -- it may not be linear...

It may not be linear as we initially had thought given some of the end market conditions, but that doesn't mean we've moved away.

The building blocks are there.

Exactly right.

Okay. The election. Again, a little bit of an unfair question, but just to try to frame it. I think the big concerns as it relates to Bruker, just to put a framework around this would be NIH funding. And when it comes to China, it's -- there's a few sub-bullets there, right? It's how are you positioned to be China for China. And then China as well as Europe, how in a world of tariffs, how exposed is Bruker from a supply chain standpoint?

Let me respond to that because I've been answering that question.

I bet you've heard that once or twice today.

Today. So first of all, on NIH funding, let's be a little bit clear about that. So first of all, NIH funding for Bruker is less than 5% of its total revenue. So I know there's a lot of concern about that. But fundamentally, that's the reality. Secondly, they're in the broader academic government segment that we play in, which we characterize as roughly 40% of our total business, there's many, many subsegments. There's pure academic funding. Here, we're talking about the Yales and the Harvards that are funded by endowments, not by government. There's medical hospital institutions. Here, we're talking about the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, other institutions that are totally funded privately. And then we have philanthropic institutions that are doing basic science research that are part of that category as well. So actually, the government-funded research category is relatively modest in the total broad picture. And then I want to remind folks that the U.S.-based revenue profile for Bruker is about 1/4 of our total revenue. So there seems to be some angst about the total picture for Bruker in terms of U.S. business, but it's really about 1/4. So that says 75% of our business is ex U.S. which is not likely going to be impacted by some of these other U.S.-specific issues. And then I want them to China.

Yes, before we go there, just really quick. I want to give you an opportunity to just talk about government funding for things like reshoring, semiconductors and others, I mean, in theory and based on what we've heard just in terms of -- and there's some conflicts depending on who you listen to, but in terms of which member of the new administration you listen to. But one consistent theme is bringing jobs back to the U.S. and that is the motivation ostensibly behind tariffs. When you think about bringing semiconductor production back to the U.S., that's a good guy for you guys.

Indeed. And in fact, what we have about, let's say, 8% or 9% of our overall revenue is coming from the semiconductor business. I know it's not quite as exciting as perhaps the life science pieces, but it's really relevant and it generates a significant amount of operating margin performance for us. And we have been a beneficiary of that onshoring activity into the U.S. in Ohio and Arizona and other places. That's also true for other places outside the U.S., but fundamentally, it's a positive for us. . And maybe just on tariffs, generally, I may -- I'll talk about that before we go too far into China. I want to respond to the comment on China as well. But with respect to the tariffs generally, Bruker's experience with tariffs during the Trump 1.0 term was pretty benign, I guess, I would say. The most significant element of our experience around tariffs was sanctions and restrictions put on, particularly high technology elements being sold from the U.S. into China. And specifically, we had a small amount that we rescrubbed out of our backlog, less than -- much less than 1%, of our backlog had impact with respect to that. So no real significant activity between U.S. tariff impact on China-related revenue. So I think generally speaking, pretty benign activities around tariffs under the 1.0. It's very unclear quite yet exactly what tariffs are going to be put on and on what products. So that's pretty uncertain at this stage, and we'll comment on that when we have actually seen something more tangible.

Okay. And China?

On China. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about China. So first of all, calibrate this. China is about 14% of our total revenue. So clearly, an important market for us. We treat that market very seriously. We have been -- that's been a significant grower for us, mostly in -- prior to '23, I would say, the '24 market conditions and some of the order decreases that we've seen in China, we're all expecting stimulus program impact that has yet to be seen. We have seen an overall decrease in the overall revenue base for China in 2024. But fundamentally, as a market for us, it's been a very significant growth driver and a very significant element of our profitability. And this cuts across almost all the industries, whether it's semi, we are selling semi products into China. We have strong x-ray technology capabilities in China. A lot of our life science products are moving into China. NMR products, significant activity in China. So we have a very vibrant market even under current conditions, I would say, in China. Now what happens under restrictions or other characteristics connecting the U.S. to China. I mean, generally speaking, 90% of our revenue in China is being delivered through our European operations, not through our U.S. operations. I think that's an important distinction because fundamentally, the growth prospects, I think, for China and Bruker are quite strong. It's a question now of what's going to be the interaction between the U.S. and China, and that's a relatively small part of our China revenue profile.

Yes, that's really interesting. And as long as we think stimulus is happening and Bruker is well positioned in the context of stimulus activity, if a lot of what's being shipped there isn't coming from the U.S., and the discussions we're having about the outlook for stimulus 2 weeks ago remain intact and/or really...

I would say, mostly. And I would say the other piece is, for us, relative to the stimulus program in China that now I'm talking about the '24 program, it's relevant to talk about what happened in '23, where we had a huge bolus of orders coming out of China and in Q1 of '23. We've really had significant backlog connected to that, but there's just been, I guess, I'd say, an overweight of activity in China relative to our instruments in the life science category, in the NMR category, in the high-end microscope categories. So all the feedback that we currently have with respect to the '24 stimulus program, for which we have not seen yet significant orders. We saw some activity -- we saw some order activity in the third quarter. We've seen a little activity in the fourth quarter, but the RFP activity in the third and the fourth quarter relative to China stimulus programs has been very significant. So I think it's a question right now about timing and what's going on in the provinces. As you know, I think we're -- it's a slightly different administered program in China. It was in '23 centrally administered focused specifically on particular technologies. Now it's a broader program. It is more focused on provincial decision-making rather than decisions being made in Beijing. The funding has already occurred for this down to the provincial level. We know that. It's now just a matter of having the provinces actually fund the applications related to opportunities there in each province. So it's pretty clear it's going to happen. It's just a question of timing. It doesn't occur in Q4, our expectation is that will fall into the Q1 timing.

I don't want to come across as a Pollyanna about this, but I mean it's been a few weeks since we last connected. And when I hear RFP activity is picking up, the money has been distributed to the provinces. That actually sounds maybe even a little bit better than a few weeks ago. Am I going too far with that?

No, I would say it's improved. And we have -- as I said, we have seen now some orders. At the end of the third quarter, we hadn't seen a lot of order activity even in the fourth quarter. So I think it's improving. What we saw in Q1 of '23 was just this giant instant got it going. And maybe we'll see that again. It just isn't so clear quite yet.

Some have thrown out the idea that this could be a 100 basis point tailwind to growth. Is there any way to frame that?

It's really difficult because we're not on exactly the scale of this. But it does feel like everything we know, and we've got a lot of contact points in China for commercial teams, there's a lot of interest in Bruker-based products across the spectrum, but most specifically NMR mass spec and high-end microscopes. So it feels like there will be activity. It's just a question now of how big.

And when we're thinking about it from a modeling standpoint, I think the thing we got to be conscious of, tell me if I'm wrong, is building off of everything you just described, depending on what the mix of products that are bought, they have very different lead time profiles. So...

It's exactly right.

There's a scenario where this could help you in a big way in '25 from a revenue standpoint, and there's a scenario where it's kind of bleeding into '26. So you'll see the order activity. It's just when it turns into revenue, that's even more tricky.

Yes, that's exactly right.

Okay. M&A you have been uncharacteristically as a company, active over the last, what is it, 1.5 years. I was going to say 2 years but it's probably about 1.5 years...

Over a year.

As we sit here today, what's the criteria for M&A from here?

Well, look, we have a pretty significant financial thresholds that these acquisition targets have to hit. They have to be strategically hitting our Project Accelerate 2.0 categories, Fundamentally, they have to be in higher growth opportunities. And I think, generally speaking, each of the larger acquisitions that we completed in 2024 and earlier, fit those criteria.

Building off of everything we've talked about in terms of just what's going on in the world. I think some of the acquisitions are probably below target from a revenue standpoint. From an integration and from a margin progression standpoint, where you would expect to be keeping in mind what's going on at the top line?

Yes. Here's what I'd say. I'd say from an integration perspective, just to remind folks that we're not a top-down organization. We're a very decentralized organization with 12 individual divisions, and most of these acquisitions are -- have been inserted into those individual divisions. And the way this acquisition activity goes, the division presidents -- the group presidents themselves bubble up those opportunities to Frank and I, and those are evaluated and then they get -- once they're completed, they get pushed back down into those divisions. And the integration activities go according to the plan originally. And that's actually well underway. It's well underway in all the acquisitions including the more recent one, which I would say is the NanoString acquisition. And I would also want to comment a little bit on the margin programs because some of these acquisitions were dilutive but many of them were neutral. And what we're starting to see is there's a lot of interest in activity, especially with the Bruker name behind some of these. Some of these are more privately held companies that we brought into Bruker, but the brand name is a very significant brand. I think, especially in those that are kind of European based. But with respect to NanoString, specifically, I was in Seattle last week, and I have to say, the team is extremely engaged, very charged and energized as a result of the acquisition activity that's been completed. There are a number of recent wins, and we could talk about those, if you like, relatively speaking, on the legal side, on litigation overhang that helped to remove the injunction in the European marketplace. So we're rebuilding our sales force in Europe and strengthening the one we actually have in the United States. There's some really exciting activity underway. As you may have seen, we now consolidated our -- 3 of our businesses: Acuity, genomics, our Canopy and spatial proteomics business together with NanoString into 1 division called Bruker Spatial Biology and this business is now going to have 1 leader. It has a more consolidated dynamic sales force that's going to hit all those individual collective spatial biology markets. We have now combined a lot of our R&D activities. So there a lot of very significant integration activities that are underway. I use NanoString as an example, but that's true across ELITech, across Chemspeed across most of the other larger acquisitions. So very positive about both the integration activities. And actually, just as important for me, the margin profiles of these businesses as we go forward.

NanoString specifically. You're back to trying to get in a position to play offense in Europe. How long does that take?

I think it takes a couple of quarters. I mean, we're building the sales force now. I will say the customer feedback and I've been involved in some of it, the customer feedback has been really positive about Bruker back in the space in Europe. There's a lot of kind of interesting developments around the technology itself. You may have seen there's more plexing activity going on, sensitivity discussions. So a lot of our customers or customers in that spatial biology space are really excited to have us back in the space. So I think the pipeline is building. It's going to take us a few quarters to get ourselves moving again, but that's encouraging.

Let's put nCounter aside for a second, but I do want to talk about that for at least a minute. On the spatial side, trying to think of the right way to say this. NanoString's offerings were considered very good when they worked. The reliability was a concern. Bruker is really, really good at producing good, reliable instruments. I don't know if Bruker eyes is a word. But I mean, in terms of bringing kind of Bruker like discipline and reliability to NanoString, again, maybe I'm not intending to be harsh, but maybe I'm being a little too harsh. But to the extent what I'm describing has some merit to it, how long does it take for you guys to make NanoString reliability Bruker-like?

I think it's already underway. I think some of the some of the opportunities that we have with respect to some of the instruments that are being built, in some cases, outsourced need to be in-sourced, and we're taking actions with respect to that. And that will clearly help us from a margin or a gross margin perspective in those businesses, but more fundamentally to tackle the issues that you've been talking about. And we're very aware of that. I will say in terms of plexing and sensitivity, though, there's still -- it's still a really solid product. I'm talking about the CosMx product itself specifically and the feedback from customers that are using the product is really still quite favorable. So there's work to be done. I don't mean to understate it, but I think fundamentally, it's a great -- it's a really good product, probably with a really superior platform underneath it. And maybe there's some hardware elements and software pieces that need to be worked on it, but that's already underway.

Two more quick ones in our springs, nCounter, I mean that instrument has been around for a long time. It wasn't really a point of emphasis at least in my opinion in the checks we did in terms of where -- understandably where NanoString was deploying resources. Is there an opportunity to do more with that as the Bruker portfolio?

I think -- so first of all, the nCounter business is a very good gross margin profile. And so for us, that's a key signal that this can be a really, really profitable part of the business. Some might argue that even without all the spatial business that the price we paid for the NanoString business could be supported just by the nCounter business...

Yes, that was an interesting thing we've talked about...

Yes. I mean I won't go quite that far, but what I would say is that we're going to reenergize that business. We're dedicating a sales force specifically to that kind of -- I mean it's a really affordable gene expression business. It functions extremely well. It's got good reliability. There are some collaboration opportunities that we're exploring. So there's a really interesting market opportunity there. And I think we will manage that in a completely different way.

What -- in terms of what we should be looking for in terms of what comes next legally in the U.S. Anything we should be thinking about heading into the...

Yes, not much new for the U.S. You heard about the wins in Europe. I think, fundamentally, we won't know too much more until the spring time of '25. And then likely, whatever happens is favorable...

It doesn't end there.

It doesn't end. There's likely appeals. So it's going to go on for a while. But I think what's great about it at the moment is that we have free unencumbered access to all the markets for all the products across the globe right now.

Okay. Only about a minute or 2 left, just to wrap up here. It's been a period of really amazing transformation over a few years for Bruker, building off the legacy of fantastic science and innovation, been a tough couple of quarters, at least relative to expectations. But as we think about it today, there's a lot we don't know, but there are good guys, right? It's like -- and I want you to tell me where I'm wrong, but between onshoring maybe not pharma equipment demand getting better, but activity is picking up, you are differentiated in terms of what you provide to the research community. There's obviously macro concerns and more uncertainty with the change in administration. But I mean, am I missing anything at a high level in terms of good guys...

I come back to what I said at the beginning, which is 70-plus percent of our revenue is outside the U.S. So I think we still have strong tailwinds in a number of other markets, including in Europe. I mean, our profile you may have seen, I mean, even the third quarter BSI order bookings performance was we said high single digits, high mid-single digits category that translates to 6-plus percent organic. That's a really good signal for us. So there are a number of areas I would call out industrial markets, the applied, especially cleantech-related markets. I think our academic markets outside the U.S. are quite strong at the moment. I mean the semi, we've already talked about, and that's not just a semi experience for the U.S., it's also for Europe and Japan. I think our overall portfolio is more diverse and more exceptional, I think, today than it was even 2 years ago. And we continue to innovate not only in timsTOF, but across the entire product portfolio. So we're pretty -- we're very excited about the future. And there's going to be some choppiness perhaps in the United States, but there's plenty of other markets that we'll work our way through.

All right. Gerald, we're going to leave it there. I appreciate you tolerating me being so macro level and kind of high level on this, but this was really helpful to just think about Thanksgiving [indiscernible] going on right now.

Great to spend some time with you, hope to see you again next year.

That's right. Thanks, Gerald.