Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Joanne Wuensch from Citibank. Your line is open.
Joanne Wuensch: Good morning and thank you for taking the questions. Nice start to the year, or nice end to last year, too. So, here’s a question I have. In nutrition, you’ve done a great job of, it sounds like, returning to normalcy. I’m wondering if there are pockets that still need to sort of get back on track or whether we should think of this returning to sort of a mid-single-digit segment growth category? Thanks.
Robert Ford: Yes. Yes, I think kudos to the team here. We set out a target at the beginning of last year, this time last year, to get to market leadership in our October call. We had already confirmed that and I’d say over the last couple of months that continues to expand in terms of our position versus the number two. Yes, I think you’ll now have the full year effect, Joanne, of having all of that share. And I’d say, given the strength of the portfolio of the team and what we went through and the actions that we’ve taken, I’d actually expect us to actually surpass our pre-recall share. I don’t know exactly when, but that’ll be my expectation on that. You’ll have a little bit of a partial year impact there of some pricing that we took across the entire nutrition portfolio.
So I’d say we’re probably above that four to six range that we used to have pre-pandemic, at least into 2024. As I’ve said, I think that we can be at the higher end of that range once everything kind of settles down. And I think a big growth driver for us going forward is really going to be the adult segment, which is growing high single digits, and of which we’ve got very high market share positions across the globe. And this position with the brand we have, the science that we have, really aligns to, I’d say, a pretty sustainable demographic trend that we’re seeing, which is just an aging population that is focusing on health care and on nutrition. So I’d say that’s probably an opportunity for us to maybe break out of that higher-end six range going forward.
But I think right now you’ll see the impact of the share in the US, some partial year impact of the price, allow us to be above that 6% range. And then as we move into next year, what’s going to be the impact of some of the launches that we have planned for the adult segment, and what is that going to do for us?
Operator: Thank you. And our next question will come from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Vijay Kumar: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question and Robert, congratulations on a nice Q4 and a solid guide. I guess my one question is on M&A. Looking at the balance sheet, phenomenal position. You at least have a minimum of $20 billion of firepower. Abbott hasn’t done any large deals in the last few years. So my question is, how do you see the opportunity for larger size deals? What is Abbott’s appetite for a larger size, more meaningful transaction?
Robert Ford: Well, yes, we’ve got a strong balance sheet and provides us a lot of flexibility on our capital allocation plan. On the M&A side, Vijay, listen, I think it starts off with, we’ve got great pipeline. We have great organic opportunities here to be able to kind of drive top tier sustainable growth. So that ends up allowing us to be in a selective position here, where we’re not trying to use M&A as a way to kind of bulk up our top-line or to cover any kind of top-line gaps that might be there. So that allows us to be more selective. And if there are opportunities that fit strategically and can generate an attractive return, then like you said, you’ve done the math. We’ve got the flexibility and the firepower to do that.
But I’m not looking to acquire businesses simply to make the top-line look good. Profitability matters. Earnings matter. And when you get into these larger size deals, you have to have very strong conviction and understanding of that to be able to generate those returns and not just look at it as a top-line play. I think they’re harder nowadays. You look at what we did with St. Jude, and we have looked back at the deal model that we put together, spot on in terms of all aspects there of how we thought this business would impact the Company. So I’m not discarding anything like that. I’m just providing you the framework that says they’re harder to make work if you want to look beyond just top-line and you want to look at ROICs and all the right financial metrics here in terms of how you deploy capital.
