John R. Deren
Thanks, Stu, and good morning. All results that I speak to will be on a continuing operations basis for 2025. Due to the reclassification to discontinued operations, historic continuing operations reflect the impact of stranded costs in all periods presented. Given Stu's previous discussion of revenue, I will begin with margins. For 2025, adjusted gross margin was 63.7%. A 200 basis point decrease year over year was primarily due to the adverse impact of tariffs, the addition of the vascular intervention acquisition, which has a slightly lower gross margin than the corporate average, higher operating expenses associated with the acquisition of the vascular intervention business, and a negative impact of foreign exchange rates. Adjusted net interest expense totaled $93.6 million for 2025 as compared to $77.4 million in the prior year. The year-over-year increase is primarily due to the borrowings used to finance the vascular intervention acquisition, and to a lesser extent, increased logistics and distribution costs and foreign exchange. Full year adjusted operating margin was 22.7%. For 2025, our adjusted tax rate was 12.6% compared to 13.4% in the prior year. The year-over-year decrease is primarily due to the beneficial tax provisions included in the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including the ability to deduct U.S.-based R&D expenses. At the bottom line, 2025 adjusted earnings per share was $6.98, representing an 8.7% increase year over year. The increase is primarily due to higher revenue and adjusted operating income, including the impact of the vascular intervention acquisition, a lower tax rate and share count, partially offset by negative impact of interest expense and foreign exchange. At the end of the fourth quarter, our cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash equivalents balance was $402.7 million as compared to $285.3 million as of year end 2024. As we have indicated, 2026 results include a number of transient factors related to our strategic divestitures that will impact our near-term results, which we expect will be mitigated with the close of both transactions, ultimately building a clearer financial profile with significant improvements in margins, interest expense, and adjusted earnings per share. With that context, I will go over items that will impact our 2026 results. First, we will incur approximately $90 million of stranded costs associated with the classification to discontinued operations throughout 2026. Once the strategic divestitures close, which is still expected to be in 2026, transition service and manufacturing service agreements are estimated to fully offset the stranded costs on an annualized basis. Of note, until the divestitures close, cash generated by the discontinued operations will accrue to RemainCo, thereby reducing the economic impact on the company from the stranded costs until fully offset by the transition service and manufacturing service agreements. Accordingly, our initial 2026 guidance reflects the fully burdened cost structure for RemainCo inclusive of approximately $90 million in stranded costs. Second, the exact timing of the closings of the strategic divestitures will pace our ability to deploy capital during 2026. As we receive these proceeds, we will execute on our capital deployment initiatives. As a reminder, we expect to receive net proceeds of approximately $1.8 billion after tax from the divestitures. We remain committed to returning significant capital to shareholders through our previously announced $1.0 billion share repurchase authorization and our intention to repay debt with the remaining proceeds from the strategic divestitures. As we look forward to 2027 and beyond, we anticipate these capital deployment actions, in combination with the impact of the transition service arrangements and manufacturing service arrangements and our efforts to further mitigate stranded costs and right-size the organization, will result in a significant increase in our adjusted EPS. Moving to a review of our 2026 guidance. Please note that our 2026 guidance is provided on a continuing operations basis and excludes the acute care, interventional urology, and OEM businesses. For year-over-year comparison purposes, 2026 guidance is based on a pro forma adjusted constant currency growth that excludes the Italian payback measure in 2025 of $9 million, the impact of foreign exchange of $14 million, and the impact of approximately $14 million in product revenue that was discontinued in 2025 due to a strategic realignment. Pro forma adjusted constant currency growth guidance for 2026 includes vascular intervention revenue. We expect pro forma adjusted constant currency revenue growth for 2026 to be in the range of 4.5% to 5.5%. To put the 2026 growth outlook into context, continuing operations delivered 4.7% pro forma adjusted constant currency revenue growth in 2025. This performance establishes a solid foundation for our future mid-single-digit revenue growth profile, and we remain confident in our ability to achieve this goal as we move forward. Turning to adjusted earnings per share. We expect the range of $6.25 to $6.55 in 2026. Again, this reflects a set of assumptions and excludes a number of factors as already discussed. Additionally, for modeling purposes, you should consider the following. We expect 2026 adjusted operating margin to be approximately 19%, which reflects the full impact of approximately $90 million in stranded costs associated with the separation activities and no offsetting benefit from transition service and manufacturing service agreements during 2026. In addition, I would also note that our 2026 operating margin is inclusive of R&D investment of approximately 8% of sales. Of note, when taking into account the positive impact of transition service arrangements and manufacturing service arrangements, we estimate that our underlying steady-state adjusted operating margin will be approximately 23%, which is 400 bps above our fully burdened adjusted operating margin guidance for 2026. Once the strategic divestitures close, we expect at least $90 million on an annualized basis from the recognition of transition service and manufacturing service agreements to fully offset stranded costs, which will be netted in our expenses. As a first step in the process to mitigate the approximately $90 million in stranded costs, a restructuring, as disclosed in today's press release, has been approved by our board to eliminate a portion of these stranded costs, streamline global operations, and improve our long-term cost structure, primarily through workforce reductions and capital asset rationalization reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency. These actions are expected to be substantially completed by mid-2028. We expect the restructuring to result in approximately $50 million in annual pretax savings. Looking forward, we see opportunities over the next several years to improve adjusted operating margin through leverage from revenue growth and other cost saving initiatives above our steady-state margin profile of approximately 23%. Moving to assumptions below the line. Net interest expense is expected to approximate $105 million for the full year 2026. Our estimate reflects a refinancing of our $500 million 4 5/8 senior notes, which are due in November 2027. Finally, we are assuming a 2026 tax rate of approximately 13.5%. For shares outstanding, we are not assuming any share repurchases in 2026 guidance, implying a share count largely consistent with 2025. Nonetheless, we are committed to executing our $1.0 billion share repurchase program upon the closing of each of the strategic divestitures and will provide updates to our guidance throughout the year. That concludes my prepared remarks. I would now like to turn it back to Stu for closing commentary.