Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. ($ZBH)
Earnings Call Transcript · June 8, 2026
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
David Roman
AnalystsGood morning, everyone. I'll go ahead and get started here with the next session. I'm very pleased to welcome the management team from Zimmer Ivan Tornos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Stellato, Interim Chief Financial Officer. I obviously have a bunch of questions, but happy to open it up to others. Should you have questions, we'll just get you a mic for those participating on the webcast so they can hear.
David Roman
AnalystsMaybe I'll just kind of start with a very dynamic year for Zimmer Biomet with the sales force transition. And one of the things that you clarified recently was this investor dialogue ground, 1099 versus FTE and dedicated and non-dedicated. Maybe just sort of set the registry like what are you actually doing? Why are we doing it? And where are you in that
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWell, first of all, thank you for -- so the go-to-market changes in the U.S. Maybe let me just take 3 minutes, give you a longer answer than you anticipated to break down and summarize what is the problem we're trying to solve. So as a company, we do roughly $8.5 billion in sales, Zimmer Biomet and roughly 60% of our business here in the U.S. not to mention most of the EBITDA comes from the U.S. So call it $4.5 billion of revenue in the U.S. and again, most of the profit. We've been operating for ever with what we call an independent channel and independent is mostly 10 and 9. We've been creating mostly with a nonspecialized channel, which basically means that we take a multi-platform approach. I get up in the morning, I go sell Hines until recently put an ankle, shoulder sports medicine, whatever. We have a productivity challenge in the U.S. or average rep in the U.S. that's 7 cases per week, 7 cases per week versus leading competitor doing 16.7 cases. So again, mostly independent non-dedicated only one for specialized and a productivity dynamic of doing less than half the number of cases of our competitors. What are we trying to do? For key principles behind what we call Project Optima internally, the best version of our commercial execution journey. Principle number one, everybody has to be fully dedicated to Zimmer Biomet. Everybody has to be fully dedicated. That doesn't mean everybody has to be at 10 and 9 or rather a dose. Not everybody is going to convert from tenant -- so that's probably something that early on in the journey, we confused people with the so. Everybody has to be fully dedicated that means that at the end of the transformation, there is a percentage of the channel that remains 1099, as long as they're fully dedicated exclusive to Zimmer Biomet, we're okay with that. We run a business called CMFT training of maxillofacial thoracic, this is all 1099 that basically growing 15%, 16% for began amount of years. So please #1, fully dedicated exclusive to Zimmer-Biomet gating plant. We are going to specialize 100% of the channel. So the days of selling different products across the board are over. We're going to be best in class when it comes to focus. So we're building verticals around shoulders, sports medicine, recon hips and knees, already got a vertical on CMFT through Paragon 2. We've got another vertical on foot and ankle. So that's principle number two. Principle number three, we're going to add all kinds of capabilities in the areas where we didn't have those capabilities. We're hiring 200 people in technology to sell Rosalia, Rosa Shoulder, monogram we added a ton of people when it comes to ASC ambulatory surgical centers. We are in a ton of people when it comes to market access and doing contract in a different way. So I'm going present #3. And then #4, we are going to have a different level of governance. So we have had inconsistent incentive plans or operating mechanisms, the way we make the channel have not been great for a variety of reasons, so we change that as well. So the sum of all parts, we will see or productivity going up, we'll see our focus going up. And those 2 things alone will drive better performance in the U.S. that the performance we've seen here for the last, call it, 3, 5 years.
David Roman
AnalystsCan you maybe visualize trust or give some examples what undedicated looks like for some sometimes you use terminology on calls that is disconnected from the way we look at things. Is this like someone sitting around selling the knees and they're like a crypto trader on the side, like are they running a long-term and on the side? Like what is it actually look like.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesI'm not sure about the to, but the laundry and, yes. So non-dedicated is somebody who may have 2, 3 jobs other than Zimmer Biomet. And that's real. -- right? If you obtain an independent agent, you kind of like a franchisee of the company. So you represent all products in a given geography, but you do other stuff. And going back to data, we got 2/3 or we had is a different number. We had 2/3 of the company at the beginning of 2026 that were non-dedicated to summer biomed, mostly 250 reps in the U.S., more numbers coming our way, 2/3 at the beginning of 2026 were independent agents and 2/3 of the 2/3 start breaking down the funnel here had at least a second, if not a third job. . And yes, not cryptocurrency, but we've got people with Dairy Queen, staining bed salons, got people with distribution agreements for other medical device companies -- so the focus is not there. And again, that's why we do 7 cases per week versus some of our competitors doing 16.7 cases per week. We got people that work sometimes 2 days a week. -- what as you got computers that are doing cases 5 days a week. So that's the whole dedicated and dedicated, focused, non-focus dynamic.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd how do you avoid I guess, unintended turnover because if you're in 1 of those physicians, it sounds like a pretty good gig. I get to cover some cases for Zimmer Biomet, get to run the southern cash flow business on the side. Like how do you avoid losing the right people.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWell, with a lot of data and a lot of caution not to mention best-in-class project management. We segmented the project -- this project optimized in 3 stages. Stage #1 is what we call no-regret moves. -- right? You got territories that have grown less than 1% for 5 years. You got territories that grew nothing in 2025. And in those territories, we know that we have a focus on commercial execution challenge. So we're moving faster in that stage #1. We've done most of that already in 2026. And again, it's gone better than expected. Now you move to the second stage, which is, hey, it's a bit of a mixed bag here, right? Not everybody in this stage is having commercial execution challenges. There may be some contracting dynamics. The company also has done what we have done when it comes to supply over the years. So we're going to be careful. Retention agreements. We buy some of these businesses that the people have. We guarantee certain extensions of geography product lines in some conversations. So that one, we've been more careful. On stage 3, which is the heaviest may be risky. We're going to go slowly. We're going to guarantee certain things in advance. I've made public remarks around how 6 independent distributors at Zimmer Biomet. We already had a conversation with the street year extensions with guarantees, but the trade-off is that you can no longer represent a second or third company you have to be fully exclusive to Zimmer Biomet. So again, segmentation in different stages, conversations, territory by territory, yes, money matter in this conversation, we doing what's right for these territories.
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesI guess the thing I'd add that the attention to change management has been critical on this, and that's ultimately the governor on how fast we go. So if we haven't checked all the boxes on how we had the conversations, do we know the potential repercussions we're not going to move forward until we're comfortable with that. I think that helps kind of make sure things stay on track.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd as you make these decisions to give longer-term guarantees or and invest in your people, does that create a disconnect or mismatch kind of in the P&L where you're deploying resources, but you're not seeing the revenue return yet from the shift to -- from non-dedicated to dedicated.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesSo first of all, the reason why we guided EPS the way that we did in '26 is because we knew we're going to have some expenses associated with the transformation of the channel. When we move from a nondedicated and let me use 1 again to W2, is more expensive. -- right? To the you fully burden, you got benefits and whatnot. But then again, the assumption, and so far, the assumption has been validated is that as you increase your number of cases and increase your revenue, there is an absorption dynamic there right? So net-net, it's a much better investment. But yes, there's some short-term variances when it comes to the cost dynamic here.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd then on the top line, obviously, you have the guidance of 1% to 3%. You started a little bit better than talk about comps and days and things like that. But maybe how are you assessing whether this is successful or not? Is it going to be the pace at which you get reps converted? Is it going to be hitting the 1 to 3? Is it going to be doing it faster, like .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesNumber 2 is getting better financial performance, right? There's all kinds of qualitative inputs. But ultimately, we got to see cases going up as we see cases going up, we go into the right accounts, not just servicing cases, not all cases are created proof. So that's ultimately definition. -- seen a much better productivity per rep, both in terms of the quantity and the quality of cases.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd -- we appreciate all the numbers. We love numbers that you know. -- have you -- is there -- maybe it's not the way to think about it, but tell me -- is there like a certain percentage of the U.S. revenue cover that's been converted, not just looking at bodies like .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesYes. We -- again, we locked in at least 40% of all the independent -- 40% of the revenue that is driven by all the independents. I quoted that earlier by eliminating the Stage 1 dynamic already covered another 20%. So we could say we're 50%, 60% down.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. And I think you've talked about this being a 2-year process to complete .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWe want to exit '27 with this fully behind us.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. Does that mean that '27 will be a similar year of revenue disruption?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesI don't know, early to talk about 2027. I mean, look, some of the changes we're making in early 2026 are going to be a tailwind for 2027. Some of these 200 people that we're hiring for TEC are going to be a tailwind for 2027. Some of these retention agreements that we put in 2026, are going to be a tailwind for 2027 and then you had the conversation of are you going to lose -- as you get into the riskier areas, I'm going to lose some of these commercial partnerships to what you talk about '27. Very excited about '26. Very excited about the reset that we're making here. What I can tell you is that once we're done with this, the U.S. is going to be growing at the pace that the U.S. deserts to growth.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd what is that number?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesMid-single digit or above. I mean it's almost by elimination, right? If the market is healthy and it is right, growing 4% to 5%. If the innovation is compelling, and it is launching 50 new products in 3 years. There's not a single gap in the portfolio. Then by elimination, the 1 thing that is broken is the U.S. commercial channel, the productivity in the U.S. channel. So as you fix that, the innovation is there, and the market doesn't retract which you will not -- then you should be growing at least at market growth rates, if not slightly above. So mid-single digit above.
David Roman
AnalystsThat's a good segue, I think, to dive into some of the innovations. So you look at some of the products that you launched far across the suite that you're describing is a magnificent 7. It looks like a couple of them like hips, Z1 and HAMR appear to be sort of killing it. on the upside. Maybe I'm sure you always want more. But those seem to be doing great. We don't seem to be seeing an impact yet on some of the other ones. Maybe just kind of frame for us where you are in kind of the journey of some of these product launches and how they're doing and what we should expect?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesSure. You make it sound so cool. Z1 and HAMR I feel like we should give feature. It's more than Z1 and HAMR. OrthoGrid is growing strongly in the double digits. So the 3 key hip launches as part of the MAX7 are overperforming. We grew hips in the U.S. in Q1, 5% and second half 2025 was mid-single digit plus -- upper single digit for 1 of the quarters. So solid class in terms of execution of those launches., it's not that we're not seeing the growth of personal copy of parts on cementless said you got some bad guys in the mix, right? You've got headwinds within the knee portfolio. We've got to do better. Commercial execution has not been great. But that's not to say that those product launches are not are not being successfully launched or they're not working now well for us. doing better than needs. I wouldn't say that the new product launches are not working out.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. Maybe just before we go on to Paragon '28, I want to maybe just talk about the competitive environment because it's is a lot happening. There's always a lot happening, but it seems to be especially unique now where Stryker seems to be sort of steady cyber the cybersecurity dynamic. But they have 2 other competitors who continue to go through a lot of change. So how are you seeing just the competitive landscape unfolds?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesThe competitive environment has always been intense and it's not going to slow down. For companies account for 82%, 84% of the revenue and the fight is on like where we are. We didn't have a portfolio we hire today -- we didn't have some of the dedicated structure that we're building, and we're building it. So I like what we had. I like our chances as we exit 2026 and enter 2027. So I work on the fight.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. Maybe going on to Paragon and just the whole SET business in general, you about year-ish into closing Paragon. Talk about how things gone? What are you seeing in the business now?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesIt's been a very exciting journey. So we closed the deal in late April 2025. So we anniversary recently. This is a business that is growing double-digit now. Sabisa prior to being acquired was growing in the mid-teens. We strongly believe that the growth rate as we exit starting to see that as we hit midpoint in 2026. There is a bolus of innovation coming out of the business in a variety of fronts. We just reviewed the LRP, the loan rate plan with the Board. We believe we have a strong pathway to be gone #1 in foot and ankle. By the end of the LRP is 4, 5 years. The integration is going better than expected. So we're not seeing disruption from a channel dynamics standpoint. Our turnover in the business is very low. No slowdowns, as I mentioned, innovation. The same management team that we have or they have at Paragon 28, Albert and the team, Magaro and whatnot. They are the managers running this business. So far, a year behind, every single financial commitment is being delivered when it comes to level of dilution from an EPS standpoint, inflation cost and the is going to play for the second year. So I think this is a great validation point for Zimmer Biomet. This shows that we know how to do deals. We know how to pick the deal strategically. We know how to integrate the deal operationally and this will serve as a proxy for future deals to go.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd how are you thinking about M&A just in the context of the commercial changes that you're making? Where does M&A fall in the priority scheme? And what does the environment look like?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesSo we're always going to look for responsible diversification, and that means M&A. '26, we said that it was not a year to do M&A because we've got a lot going on, right? This is a herculean project in the U.S. changing a chunk of 2,545 reps, building on these capabilities that I went through dealing with all these contract extensions work, right? So that is the primary focus of the organization starting with myself for 2026. In the back of that, we're integrating OrthoGrip, another deal that we did. -- we are integrated Monogram '28, first to the world surgical autonomy. We are integrating other smaller deals that we've done over the years. So Paragon plus monogram, process smaller deals. So the channel is a locked. So in '26, we said that we're going to deploy capital allocation is going to be deployed towards -- as you know, car allocation tends to be fluid and opportunistic at times. And when you get the multiple that we get and you generate the cash flow that we do, we're going to prioritize differently. And this year, we're doing $1 billion by, as we enter '27, the responsibility to diversify continues and will embrace other deals similar to Paragon '28. By the way, in 2026, we also committed to a $300 million investment with Deerfield Management and HSS to look for other conduits of innovation. So it's a lot that we are going to. I mean this is not a company that needs more innovation. It's a company that needs better execution.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd what would be those other conduits of innovation? Is that like a venture portfolio -- is it or is it therapy.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWe're looking at stage cartilage repair opportunities, restoring versus replacing. We're looking at as the world's I would say, as the company that collects the most data in the word and orthopedics before surgeon after what can we do with that data early on foundational models, valleability to predict versus explore different surgeries. Rethinking the dynamics post these charts. What are some of the different contracts that we can reinvent or engineer doing contract in a different way. We are investing with Deerfield in a variety of fronts around biosurgicals and whatnot. So it's other stuff that we're doing now with the Deerfield management team. . So again, that's a long-winded speech to take you the same thing. We got a lot on innovation. That's not to say we're not going to do M&A. The that will come. The cash flow generation in this business is great. But in '25 and '26, we've done a lot.
David Roman
AnalystsTime lines for Monogram and then also just the commercial strategy around how monogram fits with your broader robotic strategy.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesSo Monogram, we completed the clinical trial. We are in preparation mode to submit the 510(k). We still expect to launch early '27 the same autonomous and late '27, the fully autonomous with a caveat, I've said this publicly, that we may be able to bring the fully autonomous sooner to market. The feedback so far has been extremely compelling. We're going to take our time because this is new technology, again, first to the world of surgical autonomy in orthopedics. But there are 5 key vectors of the feces that we validated in the preclinical trial. Number 1 is safety. We have 0 patient safety-related events. The surgical boundaries within these 2 with the monogram robot are outstanding. It's as smart as we get. So number 1 is safety. Number 2 is around ease of use. This is a robot that has fast registration. This is a robot that reduces preparation time dramatically versus conventional robotics. Bone-cutting preparation of the actual surgery is less than 3, 4 minutes. So very easy to use, very efficient. We believe at some point, we can bring time neutrality to cases. One of the main reasons why 80% of surgeons don't use our robot is because they don't want to slow down their cases or change the surgical algorithm. And again, early in the conversation, but we're seeing that we can get into a time neutrality, so efficiency. Reproducibility. The whole dynamic, once you've done 3 cases, you don't 300, Exaring effect, but you get it. This is not again something that requires a lot of complex changes. And then accuracy. We've seen in the clinical trials a totally different level of accuracy. 40% improvement in accuracy. So safety, efficiency, ease of use, reproducibility and accuracy, again, look forward to the 510-umission. And then in terms of the business model, how we plan to commercialize Monogram, there are 3 key opportunities or business cases. One, I just referenced 80% of surgeons in the U.S. that use a robot -- there are 29,000 orthopedic surgeons in the U.S., so 20% use a row that's 50/100. You got a chunk that do not. We believe it's a blue ocean opportunity in the first business case to bring this technology to the 80% and increased penetration or adoption of robotics. The second vector, the second business case is obviously attacking competitive accounts. We have had mixed results versus some competitors given a variety of reasons from a product standpoint that are mitigated with monogram. And then this fair business case is going to be some of these Rossa users moving on to a monogram -- we don't think that's going to be the premier opportunity because Ross is very sticky. It's the #1 robot outside the U.S. and those who use Rosa and like Rosa, don't switch. But it's a set of wallet opportunity, if you will. -- titrating up to a higher revenue type of robotic platform. So 3 very specific business cases, lots of excitement. We look forward to launching in early 2027.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd can you just go into a little more detail on the comment you just made about the dynamics with robotic competition. It sounds like there are gaps, maybe gaps on ROSA in the U.S.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesI wouldn't quote in gaps, but the reality is that in the U.S., there is a preference towards city scanning with a segment of users that's why we remediated the GA with our pass with mini about we're launching Arosa that is CT scan base as well. But yes, for those users that prefer scan versus much less, Monogram is going to be another weapon that we're bringing to market. For those surgeons that rather have less involving in the case, some call it, half the technology, less surgeon involvement, whatever you want to call it. Monogram should become a very desirable choice, but then again, outside the U.S., it's the opposite dynamic. a's the U.S. CT-scan is not reimbursed. -- in a lot of countries. Radiation is a deep conversation. 5%, I was being an article or a study rather the 5% of all cancers are cityscaradiation based. Some certainly sort of the U.S. pay attention to those dynamics. So we're going to have one thing that I believe is going to be a major competitive advantage, optionality. We're going to have all kinds of robotic applications in all kinds of preplanning method with all kinds or preparing methodology plus mixed reality, plus elephants and navigation, so optionality.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. And I guess the last question here just on -- as you think about the segmentation of the market, that 80% who don't use a robot. They're a profile of that type of surge. Are those low-volume surgeons -- how would you describe -- or maybe there isn't a way to homogenize it.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWell, we've done, as you can in mind, extensive VOC, voice of customer, and we run very large market research studies. 29,000 surgeons in the U.S. 20% adoption robotics 80% do not, 110,000 surgeons outside the U.S., 10% penetration robotics, 90% do not use robots. And by the way, the 110,000 it's probably not every country in the world, but it's the just 15 countries. Focus in the U.S., 4 or 5 reasons why I then use our robot. Number one, I mentioned this earlier, it slows me down, right? I'm a high-volume user, I want to go fast. I can just change my surgical technic algorithm and it slow my case is down, right? Robotics are not reimbursed. I want to do more cases. That's number one. Number 2 is complex, I got to change my surgical algorithm. Number 3 is expensive in my health care system, a hospital in ISC, I'm not going to be able to acquire that. That is getting mitigated because we do a lot of installations. And then number four, you alluded to this, volume doesn't qualify. 75% of orthopedic surgeons in the U.S. are doing less than 25 net per year. So I get all kinds of data here today, David, about 29,000 orthopedic surgeons, 75% of those orthopedic surgeons are doing 25 knee cases per year or less. So that's roughly super month. So what you do in those volumes, you're going to have a Mako Ross or whatever, that's a great opportunity for monogram. And again, we think about the economic strategy here. But if you believe what I just told you that is very intuitive. It's very easy to use. You have to change your surgical algorithm. And this is really democratize robotics than those users or those surgeons that are doing 25 met per year are going to embrace this and potentially do more volume as they get more confident with Monogram.
David Roman
AnalystsOkay. That's great. Maybe we can turn over to the P&L. Obviously, a strong first quarter gross margin. There was some tariff dynamics in there. But maybe you could peel apart the 73% gross margin, I think there's a sense where even the underlying profitability was and how that maps to the 70% to 71% guidance for the year.
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesYes, fair. Good question. Yes. So as a reminder, in the first quarter, we did recognize a $0.20 upside relative to the Supreme Court ruling on tariffs. And that gave us a little over 200 basis points of performance and that's mostly that gross margin level. So that kind of gets you back in line with what you'd expect. So Yes. That's the -- for the balance of the year, we've got everything else kind of baked into the guidance that we gave all the right data points, so you can kind of trace how things kind of flow in through the balance of the year. We did have a little bit of inflation that we had factored in that we knew that coming in, and that was again, why we've guided to where we are.
David Roman
AnalystsBut even with that dynamic in Q1, that 70 to 71 sits below where you were kind of trending last year, too. Is that because of timing of recognizing higher cost inventory flowing through the P&L? And how does that shake out as we exit this year into next year?
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesYes, exactly. So it's -- as you know, things kind of come in through the P&L on a lag as it goes through there. So that is kind of flowing its way through. And then we're doing a lot of different activities to try to drive cost out heading into next year. And obviously, we're not going to provide any guidance as it relates to 27%. But we're always trying to drive those productivity measures and other kind of activities to make sure that we're not as good a position as possible. I think the next Year.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd then maybe just sticking to the rest of the P&L. Even Paragon, as you mentioned, annualized, you still had Q1 without Paragon last year and with Paragon this year. But you servicing R&D flatten out in dollars. How are you funding some of the innovation if we're not seeing -- how do we interpret the growth in R&D?
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWell, as I mentioned earlier, we got different ways the innovation to market, right? So if you go back the last 3, 5 years, we've invested roughly $0.5 billion organically, that's the 5% in R&D. We've done at least $0.5 billion inorganically. Not to mention we have development agreements in a variety of fronts. We spoke about Deerfield. We also have an innovation partnership with Water Street. We launched 4 products with them. One of them is actually -- another 1 is going to be Rosa Pines, the first pinless robot to hit the market very soon, by the way. So this is not a story of just the 5% in the P&L is the conduit to innovation. As I tell people, we don't do just research and development, we do search and development. And again, different partnerships, different conduits. A lot of the R&D historically that you saw there was sustaining engineering. So when I joined the company in 2018, late 2018, 60%, 65% of R&D was sustained engineering. Now it's like reverse, 60%, 65% is new product development. A lot of our sustained engineering is moved out of the U.S. to other geographies. We've got a technology center in Bangalore in India that is going to be doing a lot of these sustengineering. So I believe that the percentage does now represent the dollars that we invest in, in innovation. That said, we're able to reshuffle things as we go. We operate David with 46.1% OpEx, so there is plenty of room for us to recycle things from 1 category to the other. And now we're not going to compromise the innovation journey as we seek to deliver EPS.
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesAnd so the other thing to add too is we did have a restructuring activity that we announced in the last year, that kind of phases in right? Some of these are a little bit of a longer tail, some are overseas, so you don't start to see those savings kick in until the back half. So that can help.
David Roman
AnalystsVery helpful. And as you think about kind of wrapping 2026 together, should we view this as kind of a transition year on back to the mid- to the mid-single-digit growth, like how do you sort of contextualize '26 for people? How much of what you're seeing this year is really isolated to 2026? And when do you think we get back to a normalized growth trajectory? .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesYes. I see that's a very fair way to recap. 2026 is a transient year. I mean if you go back to the last 5 years, we have been delivering mid-single-digit growth or above, right? I always go back to 2021. We delivered a 10% growth. Okay, as cobicomes, it doesn't count. And then you've got to next year, we delivered 6.5% top line growth. And then in '23, we delivered 7.5% organic constant currency revenue growth, which nice, by the way, EPS leverage of 200 basis points. Adjusted EPS in '23 was 9.5% growth. Then 24, the year of the ERP tobacco, we delivered 5% organic growth, 4.8% to be exact. And then last year, we've unique challenges in a variety of fronts. We delivered 4% once again to be expected. So this is not a story of we're missing commitments. We're not delivering the growth. It is a story of inconsistency. So we're going to address the inconsistency that this business has had. -- you cannot drive consistency in an $8.5 billion business if the U.S. is not delivering the mid-single digit or above. And the U.S. is not going to deliver mid-single digit and above. We don't have a dedicated specialized well-operated channel. So that's what we're doing in 2026. We're fixing that. And then outside of the U.S., the useful challenges that we've got in our IPO were addressed in those as well. So yes, I would call 26 a transition. We're going to make the changes we need to make on commercial execution. We're going to clean up the last things we got to do from an operational standpoint. And as we have merged out of that, you should see this company delivering mid-single-digit or above in a durable consistent manner.
David Roman
AnalystsAnd just on the earnings side, since you took the tariff refund this year, is that a headwind you have to overcome next year?
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesI'd say it's a fair question, right? And obviously, for this year, we've kind of talked about the dynamic, a bunch of what impacted us favorably in Q1. We actually anticipated some of that in the second half already. There's not much -- we're obviously not going to go direct on providing '27 guidance, but I wouldn't expect a refund to recur, right? So that's certainly a fair comment. The other thing I'd add though is we are -- we did step up our share repurchase. We're committed to $1 billion buyback this year. We've talked about the timing and we're going to try to align that as best we can with cash flows that's largely back-end loaded. We'll always be opportunistic if that's -- we don't want to restrict ourselves. But if you think about -- in the next year, that would be 1 at the EPS level.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesOkay. So by guy on the tariff, a good guy on buybacks and good guys on a variety of other fronts that will talk about when the time is right. .
David Roman
AnalystsIt's webcast, time could be right. But .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesWhen the time is right, give guidance for .
David Roman
AnalystsUnderstood. All right. I had to try. So maybe just to wrap up here. I know a lot of times, there is a short-term dynamic times maybe more than like. But -- maybe just sort of take us back and think about it, you gave this LRP in May of '24. A lot has changed since then. When do you think you'll be in a position when you want to recap a longer-term view and or are you going to do that? .
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesSo 37 seconds left on the clock. I'll just comment quickly on the LRP that we gave in May we said on average, revenue should be mid-single-digit growth in the absence of M&A for 4 years, which by the way, 2 years into the LRP. I go back to the numbers that are provided 4.8, 3.9% we do in there. EPS in the absence of M&A, we did M&A was out. And then in May of 2024, not about as near-peeriffs. So the revenue has been there. The other dynamics, M&A tariffs as complicated very soon, we'll be providing the next 3 years of what the LRP looks like. And at that we'll talk about around with the go-to-market changes addressing the U.S. and the bolus of innovation and the launch of monogram, what does this company look like for the next 5 years? And I'll tell you is going to be a totally different company.
David Roman
AnalystsExcellent. We look forward to that or to the next update in July, August.
Ivan Tornos
ExecutivesThank you so much, David. Thanks, everybody.
Paul Stellato
ExecutivesThank you.
David Roman
AnalystsThank you.
For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the
EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments,
full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.