3M Company (NYSE:MMM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mike Roman: Yeah, Julian, the way we’re thinking about it. And like I said, this is certainly taking on what we see in the markets and in our performance and the supply chain dynamics that we’re facing, all of that’s part of what we’re focused on as we look at these actions as we go through the year, adding to what we’ve already announced. And then we are thinking and getting ready for the spin off healthcare. We’re taking a deeper look, as I said, at everything we do. There’s opportunities to streamline what we do as a company in the face of those end market dynamics and our operations. And we’re learning from the changes that we’ve made to this point. So we’ll continue to work on that. In terms of giving you a view of the impact of that, that’s something we’ll come back with as we make decisions and announce those actions, those additional actions as we go through there.

Julian Mitchell: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Deane Dray: Thank you. Good morning, everyone and thank you for all the 2023 planning assumption details.

Mike Roman: Morning, Deane.

Monish Patolawala: Hi, Deane.

Deane Dray: And also for providing first quarter guidance, I know that’s not a typical practice but given all the moving parts, we appreciate that. So my question relates — it’s come up a couple of times on the healthcare spin. Can you remind us the timing that you’re expecting? There was some noise about the potential challenges in the courts. Where does that stand? And on the separation costs, how much is this impacting 2023, or is that all excluded and stranded costs? How quickly would you be able to address those? Thank you.

Mike Roman: Yeah, Deane, maybe I’ll talk a little bit about just the spin. Monish, can talk about the separation cost model. We have a dedicated team working and building the execution plans. We’re making very good progress. We talked about our expectation that we would be completing the spin by the end of 2023, early 2024 and that’s the focus for the teams as they work to execute this. You commented on there had been some — actually, there was a suit in the marketplace around the spin of healthcare and would we be able to complete that. And that was something that was dismissed. And so there’s nothing from that dynamic that’s impacting us. It’s really about our teams working to execute the spin. And as I said, they’re making very good progress. We’re confident that we’re moving in the right direction and moving ahead at pace.

Monish Patolawala: So as regards to the guide, Deane, as we had disclosed when we announced the spin off healthcare, we currently do not be — we are thinking of counting it as a special item, so that will be excluded from our ongoing operations. We are unable to predict how much of that will show up in 2023, so we haven’t put that in our guide. But when we announced the transaction, we had given you a framework that our transaction cost of spin-off will be somewhere in the range of $1 billion to $1.5 billion, which is a mixture of CapEx and OpEx. The teams are continuing to work that as they go through right now. We’ve now been at this for the last four to five months. So as we get better estimates around that, we will definitely keep you posted.

And then as regards stranded cost, as Mike mentioned, and we had also mentioned it in the last quarter, this is an opportunity for us to look at everything that we do as we are getting ready for the spin. And our goal is to reduce stranded costs as much as we can, and we’ll keep working it as we go through it. And we’ll definitely let you all know as we figure this out. But the teams are actively working. The teams are staffed and they’re doing an amazing job keeping the program on track.

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