AZTA - NASDAQ

Greetings, and welcome to the Azenta Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Tuesday, August 6th, 2024. I'll now turn the conference over to Yvonne Perron, Vice President, FP&A, and Investor Relations.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon to everyone on the line today. We would like to welcome you to our earnings conference call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024. Our third quarter earnings press release was issued after the close of the market today, and is available on our Investor Relations website located at investors.azenta.com in addition to the supplementary PowerPoint slides that will be used during the prepared remarks today. I would like to remind everyone that during the course of the call, we will be making a number of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward-looking statements. I would refer you to the section of our earnings release titled Safe Harbor Statement, the safe harbor slide on the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website and our various filings with the SEC, including our annual reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We make no obligation to update these statements should future financial data or events occur that differ from the forward-looking statements presented today. We may refer to a number of non-GAAP financial measures, which are used in addition to and in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. We believe the non-GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance. But when considered with GAAP financial results and the reconciliation of GAAP measures, they provide an even more complete understanding of the Azenta business. Non-GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the GAAP measures themselves. On the call with me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Schwartz; and our Chief Financial Officer, Herman Cueto. We will open the call with remarks from Steve on the highlights of the third quarter, then Herman will provide a more detailed look into our financial results and our outlook for fiscal year 2024. We will then take your questions at the end of the prepared remarks. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Steve Schwartz.

Thank you, Yvonne. Good afternoon everyone, and thanks for joining us today. It's great to have the opportunity to report another strong quarter of execution in fulfillment of our long-term growth and profitability objectives. We delivered solid above-market growth and more acceleration of profitability. In a life sciences market environment that's still struggling to find its footing, our unique portfolio of capabilities and our market leading positions in each of our segments leaves us less vulnerable to market slowness. We're in a position to capitalize on the fact that all methods of discovery require high-quality consented samples that can be retrieved, measured, annotated, and stored for future reference and interrogation. As a matter of fact, it's the driving forces of lower cost and faster time to discovery that are moving the markets and attracting customers to Azenta. As we can provide immediate, tangible benefits to customers looking to manage and measure samples with best-in-class capability. We enable breakthroughs faster, and that's the name of the game. Furthermore, in addition to our core business, there's an increasing desire from our customers to have access to rare and valuable samples from human populations that were previously inaccessible. As we expand the breadth of our capabilities to source, manage, and measure samples, we aim to be the provider of a full complement of critical inputs, not just for laboratory discovery, but also as inputs for powerful AI models which are hungry for this information and an important factor in the transformation of life sciences and healthcare. At our Investor Day in March, we outlined a 10-quarter plan to continue to grow revenue faster than the market growth rate, while simultaneously transforming the company to deliver on the profit potential. That comes with this unique capability portfolio. Today, we report strong progress against these commitments with big positive moves in both areas. Now we'll turn to highlights from the quarter. At $173 million, organic revenue was up 5% year over year and 9% sequentially with all three segments contributing positive growth. Sample management solutions grew 7% year over year with products contributing 5% and sample repository services contributing 11%. On the product side, revenue was up 10% in large automated stores consistent with the double-digit growth trend we've seen for more than a year, and we're particularly pleased that our cryogenic stores revenue was up almost 40% to level we've not seen in a couple years. This is a good sign from the standpoint of cell and gene therapy applications where we're again starting to see opportunities for multiple unit automated systems orders. We remain encouraged by the persistent move toward automated cold storage equipment and away from manual systems. Consumers and instruments grew a healthy 17% year over year and 20% sequentially the best performance in more than one year. And although, we're optimistic about the increase, we'll be cautious about calling a turn until we witness this for a few quarters. That said, it's a positive indicator and we remain aggressive in our push from market share in this space. As I mentioned in our SRS repository business, we delivered 11% year-over-year growth. Not only are we seeing continued strong growth, but we're simultaneously transforming our operations to be able to handle the significant volume we anticipate in the coming years by aggressively implementing our transformation to automated repositories. For example, today, samples arriving at our repositories can be automatically registered utilizing tools we've developed for high-speed registration. These samples are subsequently stored in automated stores and managed utilizing our now fully operational software as a service sample management system. We're beginning to recognize the benefits of this transformation through reduced cycle times and lower registration costs. And these new capabilities are impressing customers who recognize the significant benefits we can provide to them compared to how they manage sample assets today. Toward that end, after almost two years of slower activity from large pharma companies, we're seeing an increase in the number of new sizable sample management opportunities. Our consultative evaluations of customer storage sites are picking up again, and it's these assessments that are typically the precursors to large contractual deals. In the quarter, we want a multi-year contract to take over a management of a large sample collection for a pharmaceutical company that's closing a facility and will transfer all sample responsibility to us. At the request of the customer, we'll manage their samples in a dedicated automated store installed at our new Boston buyer repository. We continue to see tremendous value in our stores and storage services portfolio, and we're pleased with the momentum that continues to build behind what we believe will be a huge transformation in how samples are managed with automation at scale being a game changer for the industry. The Multiomics GENEWI

Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon everyone. Let me start by saying how proud and encouraged I am of the Azenta team on the disciplined execution that enabled us to accelerate the realization of savings into the third quarter, contributing to our margin expansion profitability. In addition to above-market top-line revenue performance, the efforts and initiatives of the Ascend 2026 transformation program are bearing fruit and the results we are reporting today reflect that. As you can see in the financial results we issue today for the third fiscal quarter, we delivered adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.3%, which equates to 260 basis points of expansion year over year and 440 basis points versus the prior quarter. Beyond that, and even more exciting in my mind is that we turn profitable in Q3, delivering an operating profit of $4.6 million a fee we have not seen over the last six quarters. This is the result of a fully engaged organization leading initiatives focused on reshaping the company for long-term success, scale and growth. Let me talk about the actions we've completed as part of Ascend 2026 in the area of portfolio optimization. We've now exited two non-strategic product lines, one in sample management solutions and one in B Medical, which as you know, aims at reshaping the B Medical segment to focus solely on vaccine cold chain products and the related sample acquisition strategy. In our site optimization initiative, we made tremendous progress in Q3, where we impacted another six locations. Within the six was a focus on B Medical's operation in Asia where we were able to exit three of their five locations and reduce the footprint in another. Since we started this journey, we have closed a total of 10 sites and reduced our footprint in another three. At this point in time, we have closed or optimized approximately 30% of our sites. Our IT initiatives aimed at streamlining and integrating systems is progressing well and we are on target to consolidate three systems following our fiscal year end. With that, I would like to turn to our results in the quarter and to supplement my remarks, I refer back to the slide deck available on our website. Turning to Slide 3 for some highlights. In the face of what continues to be a challenging market, third quarter revenue was $173 million, up 4% year over year on a reported basis and up 5% on an organic basis. We saw growth in sample management solutions, particularly in both large automated and cryogenic stores and in consumables and instruments. B Medical also contributed to the performance with better than expected revenue as we were able to secure more vaccine cold chain orders in the quarter, exceeding the Q3 revenue guide. Non-GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.16 and adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.3%. And as I mentioned in my initial remarks, this is an outstanding acceleration with a meaningful 440 basis points of expansion from Q2 and 260 basis points year over year. We ended the quarter in a very strong balance sheet position with $754 million in cash, cash equivalent and marketable securities. Free cash flow was slightly negative in the quarter with a usage of $5 million driven by the timing of billings. Through three quarters, we have generated positive free cash flow of $11 million. In Q3, we returned $225.9 million of capital to our shareholders through the repurchase of 4.2 million shares of Azenta stock. To date, we have now completed roughly $1.3 billion of the $1.5 billion of planned share repurchases. Now, let's turn to Slide 4 to take a deeper look at our results in the quarter. Total revenue was $173 million. Non-GAAP gross margin was 45.2%, down 40 basis points year over year driven largely by non-recurring items from last year, which made for a difficult prior year. Compare non-GAAP operating margin was 2.6%, an improvement of 330 basis points year over year coming from a combination of top-line sales growth and our cost-saving efforts, which resulted in a meaningful year-over-year reduction in SG&A. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.3%, up 260 basis points year over year, again, non-GAAP EPS was $0.16 per share in the quarter. With that, let's turn to Slide 5 for a review of our segment results starting with Sample Management solutions or SMS. Total SMS segment revenue was $81 million for the quarter up 7% year over year on both a reported and organic basis, driven by growth in storage of 13% and in products, which was up 5% as we expected, but softer than we would've liked due to the pushout of orders within our OEM product line from the second half of 24 into Q1 of ’25. Consumables and instruments grew 17% and large automated stores were up 10%. As Steve mentioned, cryogenics had the best performance in more than two years, up almost 40%. SMS third quarter gross margin was 46.1%, down 130 basis points year over year driven by the impact of certain one-time items recorded in the prior year that offset the benefits of operational efficiency and sales mix. Turning next to the Multiomics segment. Multiomics delivered revenue of $64 million in the third quarter, flat year over year, and up 1% on an organic basis with growth in both gene synthesis and next-generation sequencing. Despite a market slowdown, gene synthesis saw the largest revenue quarter since Q2 of ‘22, bolstered by new product offerings. In NGS, we saw a moderation of price erosion and significant increases in the volume of data generated. Sanger sequencing was down 8% organic year over year, but grew 4% quarter to quarter, and while we continue to cycle through in evolving Sanger market, we believe we are past the low point. Our Multiomics business in China delivered organic revenue growth of 4%, once again, outperforming a soft market. Gross margin in the Multiomics business was 47.5%, up 130 basis points year over year driven by productivity gains and direct material, labor and fixed overhead leverage. And finally, B Medical. Revenue was $29 million in the quarter, up 7% reported and 8% on an organic basis. The higher than initially expected level of revenue was primarily due to additional vaccine cold chain orders received during the quarter. Gross margin of 37.3% was down 170 basis points, primarily driven by sales mix. Next, let's turn to Slide 6 for a review of the balance sheet. As I mentioned earlier, we ended the quarter with $754 million in cash, cash equivalent and marketable securities. We had no debt outstanding. During the quarter, free cash flow was negative $5 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter were about $7 million as we invested for growth and scale in our sample repository solutions and Multiomics businesses. Turning to guidance on Slide 8. As you saw in our press release, we are lowering our full year to a range of down 2% to down 1%. This is versus our prior guide of a range of down 1% to up 1%. At this point in the quarter, B Medical's firm orders are approximately $16 million, and with nine months of actuals would land B medical at $80 million of revenue for the year. This is due to conversion delays in a still robust pipeline. SMS is now expected to grow mid-single digits as a result of the shifting of OEM orders to Q1 of 2025. We continue to feel good about our Multiomics business and are reaffirming the revenue guide of growing low single digits to mid-single digits. Even with this change, we stand by the adjusted EBITDA guide of approximately 300 basis points of margin expansion, and we are raising the non-GAAP EPS guide to a range of $0.30 to $0.36 for fiscal year 2024. The EPS raise is primarily driven by operational improvements, which offset the impact of lower sales and interest income is now expected to be approximately $32 million. In closing, we are pleased with our performance in Q3. We are committed to delivering on our purpose, serving our customers, and enabling life sciences breakthroughs faster. This concludes our prepared remarks, and I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question will come from line of Jacob Johnson from Stephens. Your line is open.

Good afternoon everybody. Congrats on the quarter. Maybe starting in a somewhat random place, but that cryogenic freezer's up 40% in the quarter, that's a pretty striking number. And much better than I think another peer that reported tonight on the freezer side. We're still hearing about some muted capital equipment spend, so I'm just curious, kind of, I'm guessing some of that was off a low base, but what drove the growth in cryo freezers? Is it the differentiated aspect of the offering or anything you'd call out there?

It's automated systems are the driver here. Jacob, for the first time in several quarters now, we had some multiple system orders for customers who have converted to automation. And so, they had these systems in place. They spent the last few quarters verifying that was the way they were going to go and we had multiple system orders. And so that's a good boost for us. We haven't seen the constraints because these are not huge ticket items. These are in the 150 K to 250 K. So, it's not multimillion kind of things like the large automated stores. And so, we haven't seen any reluctance from customers to keep purchasing. But the by and large -- although we have manual cryogenic freezers as well but by and large, the trend that we see is for the automated systems.

And then maybe for my follow-up, Herman, I guess on B Medical, just kind of high level as you think about strategic planning and right sizing costs, obviously, it's a business that's going to be down 29% this year. I imagine if DRC comes back maybe it could be something better than next year. I’ll let you wait to opine on 2025 B Medical trends, but I'm just kind of curious how you think about managing resources for that business given some of the variability in the revenue streams there?

Thanks, Jacob. Listen, what we set at Investor Day is that we're going to build B Medical to be an accretive EBITDA margin business for the long haul. We continue to see value in the sample acquisition strategy, so we're going to continue to go after that. But when you look at where they're coming in what they did this quarter, if they had an above Azenta overall EBITDA margin all of the things that we're doing around Ascend 2026 to rightsize that business, they're starting to bear fruit. So, we're going to rotate resources to the places that are growing, of course. But the things we're doing will give us the runway to explore things in a profitable way.

Our next question line Vijay Kumar from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

This is Sophia Knopp on for Vijay. I just had a quick question on the EBITDA margin. So, the current guide implies about a 250 bips sequential step up into 4Q and I was wondering if you could just talk about the factors that go into that step up and then kind of going off that, what is the right jump-off point as we start to think about fiscal ‘25 from a margin standpoint?

Hi, Sophia, its Herman. I won't talk about fiscal year ‘25, but I actually don't think it's a step up from Q3 to Q4 to hit the overall guide. Maybe it’s flat to down a little bit from Q3 to Q4. Maybe we could talk offline on the modeling.

Our next question will come line of Andrew Cooper from Raymond James. Your line is open.

This is Noah Lewis on for Andrew. I just had a quick question. So, C&I, I think you said grew 17%, and I just wanted to see like what you’re seeing in those end markets there. and maybe even also within SMS what you're hearing from customers? And is that purely just a timing thing on the guidance change? Or is there anything else going into that?

Noah, its Herman. So, in the third quarter, C&I grew 17% within instruments as we've seen in prior quarters bookings in the quarter were soft as we saw capital spending continue to be somewhat constrained. However, the pipeline continues to look strong indicating that demand remains healthy and it's tied to spending delays. However, we did see revenue growth in instruments quarter to quarter, which we viewed as a positive. And on the consumable side, revenue growth was very strong. We saw significant double-digit sequential in year-over-year increases. So, related to SMS, it's certainly just a timing thing. Maybe if I talk for a minute about the change in the guide. If I were to start with B Medical at this point in the quarter, as we talked about in the prepared remarks, we're holding about 16 million firm orders. Through nine months, B Medical's delivered $64 million of revenue, and that takes us to about $80 million. The midpoint of the last guide was about $85 million, so $5 million of the change was driven by that. And then the remaining five is related to our OEM product line. We make an automated store for a customer that goes into a lab automation system, and we're working with that customer to shift some of the volume from the second half of ‘24 into Q1 of ‘25. It's not lost volume at all. It’s just a movement of revenue from in our case one fiscal year to the next.

And our next question on come line of Matt Stanton from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Maybe one on the NGS side, it sounds like you're -- things are maybe getting a bit better. Maybe we have brighter days ahead. You talked about demand elasticity this time around versus prior cycles, maybe driving more outsourced demand. Maybe just kind of talk a bit more about why this time might be different. We might see that. And then you talked about 700 new customers. Anyway, your kind to level set us on what a normal quarter is, or what last year was just to kind of get the magnitude of the activity on in the quarter year.

A couple things. One, it seems like compared to other cycles when there's been a transition like this. It feels like our end customers who used to do their own sequencing maybe have delayed some of the tool purchases and they're sending their work to us. So, it's what we envisioned might be the case. And it's kind of what's proven to be happening here over the last quarters. We went over 700 new customers this quarter. That was an increase of a hundred from the prior quarter. Just to give you an idea. So, it feels like there's a pretty significant momentum build and we -- as I mentioned, we had a record in quote activity, both in the number of quotes and the dollar volume on quotes. And it feels to us right now as though customers want to take advantage of a significant opportunity to have a reduced price. Because of our cost structure, and our outsourcing more of the NGS work. So again, we will report on that as we go forward in quarters, but that's been our observation here over the three quarters. Pricing seems to have stabilized; volume continues to grow fifth consecutive quarter-over-quarter growth of 20% growth in terms of volume and we'll see what happens from here. But right now, I think there are just not as many tools installed and we've got a lot of capacity in place ready to take customer business and turn it fast.

And Herman, maybe one for you on the margin. So still guiding for up 300 bips for the year, despite the lower top line, is that just mixed dynamics or are there other kind of cost levers you're pulling maybe faster to protect that 300 basis points? You laid out quite a hefty list of improvements around the Ascend 26 for the year. So just kind of curious on what's kind of underpinning the ability to drive that large expansion still.

The Ascend 2026 program is bearing fruit and things are coming online faster. Maybe then we would've committed to, so we're always planning ahead and there's always things in the pipeline. Things fall off and then things come on faster and we're just experiencing that. So, we talked about in the prepared remarks that we've already, for example, optimized closed 10 sites. We've right sized another three. That's finding its way into the P&L. It's a combination of things. So, there are cost actions related to Ascend 2026. That's helping us reach these targets. And we still feel good about the fiscal year ‘26 commitment.

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question will comes from the line of Lucas Baranowski from KeyBanc Capital. Your line is open.

This is Lucas on for Paul Knight at KeyBanc. Last quarter, I believe you mentioned that you had two more sites that were expected to close over the near term. It sounds like those have occurred now, but are there any further closures that you're expecting in the coming quarters? Thanks.

We do have a couple others that we are currently working on. I don't want to disclose whether they'll happen in the fourth quarter or next year, but we do have a few things in flight right now.

And then switching over to the Multiomics business, I believe you had some sites where revenue was expected to be flat sequentially as you transitioned over to the new NovaSeq X Plus. Has that transition finished at this point and are you starting to see a step up in revenue?

It's actually an interesting dynamic Lucas. And we've said this in the past, where we're seeing price losses, it's actually being offset by volume gains. We've been able to maintain the margins in the business because the new technology actually enables us to use less raw material, less labor. And on top of that, we're able to leverage our fixed overhead structure. And it's the combination of those three things that have contributed to the margin stabilization. Over, I would say the last two quarters, the ASPs have stabilized and we're beginning to get to the point where we're lapping these tougher compares. So NGS in the quarter growing 3% is the largest quarter growth that we've seen in the past year. So, it's a positive sign for this business for sure.

To the last part of your question, almost all the data that we generate today and the measurement we make is on the X Plus tools. So, we've made that conversion already prior to the last quarter.

Looks like we have a follow-up question from the line of Jacob Johnson from Stephens. Your line is now open.

Two follow ups. I guess first, just following-up on that last line of questioning NGS 3%, Steve, I think I heard you say volume was up 20% as we near the end of some of these pricing headwinds. Is that volume growth a proxy for how we -- what we could see from NGS or any caveats there as we think about NGS growth as pricing comps normalize?

We hope so, let me start with two things. We hope so. We think the volumes are good. Yeah. The other thing I'll say is on -- when we look at the last three conversion cycles, when there were appreciable decreases in the cost of sequencing, we're at or a little bit ahead performance-wise compared to where we were before. But I think that's customer behavior. I think more people are outsourcing. So, we anticipate we'll see continued progress here. Now we got work to do and proofs to do, but there's nothing that says that we wouldn't have a chance then on the more solid, like Herman says year over year compares that that wouldn't be a lot more solid business. So, we anticipate that's the case. We'll wait and see, but the customer volume and customer activity has been really strong.

And then just one other follow-up on Multiomics just on synthesis, it's been topical for customer or for investors. You guys have mentioned the potential to add US manufacturing for synthesis if customers are asking for it. I'm just curious, have you heard any of that from customers?

I'll share this one. So, customers ask from a risk mitigation standpoint, and we're prepared. So, we have -- we already do manufacturing synthesis in North America, customers ask because they want to know that in the event that we couldn't supply from our China facility for example could we, and the answer of course is yes, but there's no push for it and no customers have gone away from us as a result of the way that we're structured today. So indeed, it's a question but only a question and it's mostly for their risk mitigation strategy. But we're prepared if we needed to, we'd be prepared to move more manufacturing to North America.

Now I want to turn it back over to Herman Cueto for any closing remarks.

Thank you everybody for joining us today. I would like to thank our 3000 pluses and employees worldwide for their hard work and dedication. That concludes our call for today. Thank you everybody.