Varex Imaging Corporation (NASDAQ:VREX) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Shubham Maheshwari: So, I would say in Medical, you’re looking at Q1, which is generally a seasonally softer quarter. So, when you’re comparing to Q4, you might see that it’s a little bit down. But we did indicate in our prepared remarks that we are seeing — we saw trends in oncology and CT, et cetera, in Q1, which was somewhat softer. So, what I would say is that CT, we’ve been now growing continuously for five years in a row. So that business is doing well. It’s just a quarterly situation and then also impacted a little bit by China. So, we expect CT to come up as China comes up. Other than that, there really isn’t anything major that we are seeing, which is the takeaway here, Shane, other than that.

Sunny Sanyal: I think in the last couple of quarters, we talked about how our customers’ environments have been choked manufacturing environment due to supply chain issues. And so they had — in some of these modalities that are down, they had stocked up. So, we saw some inventory adjustments and softness. And CT — part of the CT bounce back will also happen as China starts to come back.

Shaymus Contorno: Got it. Appreciate that. And one last one from us, and then I’ll hop back in queue. Just any latest thoughts on the convertible debt, how you’re going to potentially address it? And I guess, what’s the optimal structure that if you had your choice you’d be looking for? Thank you.

Shubham Maheshwari: Sure. Yes. So, we are currently considering various approaches to refinance the convertible debt. And as and when we make a decision, we will be sure to share with all of you. I just want to remind that the debt is maturing next June, which is June of 2025. So that’s an update on the convertible bond side. Secondly, in terms of overall structure, we would like to bring down the overall gross debt that the company is carrying, and I would like to see that we maintain overall adjusted EBITDA based net debt leverage ratio to be 3.0 or below. Right now, we are running at around 2.0, so we are fairly comfortable with our overall leverage situation. I would also say that we are currently in an excess cash situation, and we are purposely carrying excess cash on the balance sheet to deploy some of that for the refinancing purposes and bring the overall gross debt for the company down.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Larry Solow with CJS. Please proceed with your question.

Lawrence Solow: Great. Thanks. Thank you for taking the questions. And thank you, shout out [ph] to Mr. Sidoti. I appreciate the thoughts.

Shubham Maheshwari: Sorry, Larry, for that.

Lawrence Solow: No, that’s okay. Well, that’s all good. I’d say a lot of work by the people. So that’s fine. I guess, first question, just on the Medical side, and you touched on it a little bit, but ex-China, I guess, it looks like you were down-double digits ex-China, too, or close to it just in Medical alone because most of the sales, I know, into China today are Medical, right? And they were down only 10%. I say only because I think we thought that would be more like 25%, 30%. So just trying to figure out, is that — was that some of the weakness in the quarter within that Medical being down a little bit more and the mix? I know you’ve called out maybe Industrial down as well, but Industrial was actually up 10% year-over-year.

I know it was down sequentially, but I’m trying to figure out was Industrial kind of also below you? What was sort of the mix driver? And going forward, it looks like the gross margin this quarter was supposed to be 33% to 34%. Now you’re rebounding in revenue, which looks like that’s kind of in line with original projections, but your gross margin is still below what you thought Q1 was going to be. So, can you maybe give us a little more color on that, if that makes sense?

Shubham Maheshwari: Yeah. I can start off with the gross margin first, Larry. So, gross margin, we did see softness in gross margin in Q1, and that was largely driven by unexpected softness in the Industrial segment. Overall, volume in Industrial — overall volume for the business is quite low at $190 million for the full company. So, there is under absorption in our factories in both Industrial and Medical. So there’s lower volume. And then the unfavorable mix in Industrial segment drove gross margins down. And right now, we are seeing that the mix in Industrial in Q2 is also not as strong. And the overall volume is also not where we would like it to be. So, between China and Industrial and the mix on the Industrial is bringing the gross margins down, which we expect to rebound or recover in the second half, and that’s what we are expecting right now. And then…

Lawrence Solow: More Industrial than — it’s more of an Industrial — a mix within Industrial than Medical, it sounds like outside of the–?

Shubham Maheshwari: In terms of…

Lawrence Solow: Yeah. Right. Okay.

Shubham Maheshwari: And then could you repeat your first question or the other piece — the first part of your question.

Lawrence Solow: My other question was just kind of — and I’ll rephrase it, I guess. I think at the start of the year or at the end of the last — when you kind of gave this 3% to 5% full year revenue down guidance. And I think you had said, if I’m not mistaken, you thought Medical ex-China would be flat to up. Do you still think that?