Merit Medical Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MMSI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Raul Parra: Yes, I mean, I’d say they’re on pace for what we forecasted. It’s included in our numbers.

Jayson Bedford: Okay, that’s great. Thank you.

Fred Lampropoulos: All right. Thanks, Jayson.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jon Young with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

Zachary Day: Hi, it’s Zachary on for Jon today. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the quarter. I know you guys talked about the WRAPSODY commercial efforts, and you’re waiting on that a bit. But do you have any insight on what reimbursement could look like or the timing of that with the launch? Just the reimbursement stuff in particular. If there’s any color. Thank you.

Fred Lampropoulos: Yes, I think the only color is first of all, we’ll talk about that whole program as we get closer and we file. It is a breakthrough product. I’ll just leave it at that. But we’ll discuss all of this as we get closer to and we actually file the product and then have an expectation of a window because all relying on the FDA. So we’ll do a full review of the product and all the things we’ve seen globally as we get into next year’s plan. Right now, the goal is, let’s finish this year. Let’s finish this foundations for growth. As you all know, we have been just laser focused on this, and I’m proud about the team, but we’re not at the finish line, and we still have a couple of months to go, and so that’s where we’re focused. We will, though, I think, discuss in depth WRAPSODY at the appropriate time.

Zachary Day: Great. Thank you. That was all I had.

Fred Lampropoulos: All right. Thank you, sir.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jim Sidoti with Sidoti & Co. Your line is open.

Jim Sidoti: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions.

Fred Lampropoulos: You bet, Jim.

Jim Sidoti: Overall, really strong quarter. The two things that jumped out to me, one was the SG&A expense. It’s down year-over-year. It’s down quarter-over-quarter. I know you had an insurance payment there, a refund. Was that one of the offsets of SG&A? But even with that, it seemed like it was down pretty significantly. What’s driving that? And is it sustainable?

Raul Parra: Yes, just to clarify on that reimbursement, because we had added that back as a non-GAAP item, we actually added it back. So we actually didn’t get credit for that reduction. Jim, just on a non-GAAP basis. On a GAAP basis. You’re absolutely correct. But just to clarify. Look, I think we’ve been pretty open about making sure that we leverage our operating expenses. We also said that we wouldn’t spend ahead of the gross margin not coming in. I think the third quarter for us is always a little tricky because we do see a seasonal decline in the business sequentially from Q2. And so we’re always a little bit more cautious in the spend and then just making sure that we understand kind of what the gross margin is going to do. Just giving because we are deleveraging from a revenue standpoint. So, I think we were a little cautious, and we just continue to exercise that expense management that we’ve built up over the last few years.

Jim Sidoti: Okay. And then the other thing that stood out was the cash flow generation and the fact that you put a lot of that towards debt pay down. Can you – which debt did you pay down and what’s the blended rate now for the debt?

Raul Parra: Yes, look, we continue to pay down our debt from any free cash flow that we generate. That’s been the goal. We did talk about having a pretty strong free cash flow for the, back half of the year. Just given what our goal is for foundations for growth at the minimum of $300 million, I can tell you that coming out of the second quarter, given the amount of free cash flow we had generated, my confidence was a little low. And now heading into the third quarter with this huge free cash flow number of 42.5 [ph], my confidence is a little bit higher. But we’ve still got some work to do here for the next little bit of time, and we’ll go ahead and continue to pay down our debt. Our blended rates somewhere around 5.5 [ph] on the debt.

Jim Sidoti: All right. And then last thing for me, the Endoscopy business has been a bit of a headwind the past few quarters. It sounds like this quarter, it was a good quarter. Are you past the supply chain issues for that business, should we…

Fred Lampropoulos: Yes, Jim, we’re on the final part. There’s still a small part of it. So we still have a back order. Remember, the issue was we had a vendor that just stopped doing the work that we needed on the coatings. We shifted, which I think was the right thing to do, clearly, to a U.S. Company, and they’re in the final qualification of the final product. So we’re coming down the back stretch on that one. And then I think there’s a lot of other products in that portfolio, like our balloons and other things that have helped that. So we expect to see that business continue to grow very nicely going forward.

Jim Sidoti: Great. All right, that was it for me. Thank you, guys.

Fred Lampropoulos: Okay. Thanks, Jim.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Mike Matson with Needham and Company. Your line is open.

Mike Matson: Yes, thanks for taking my questions. I did join the call a little late. Apologize if you’ve already addressed this, but I did want to ask one about China. Just given you saw slower growth in the third quarter, what are you assuming for the fourth quarter? And then I know you’re not giving guidance overall for 2024 yet, but just your general thoughts on the outlook there. Can you get back to decent growth next year in that market, or is there going to continue to be headwinds, do you think?