Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Frank Laukien: So, we don’t give book-to-bill by country or by region. We acknowledge that in Q3, bookings were down year-over-year in China and in Japan and elsewhere, certainly in the major geographies. Right, we don’t look at daily or weekly order patterns like maybe more of a consumables business model, right. We always, in all geographies, get more than half of our orders in the third months of each quarter. So, the type of trends within the quarter that some people have described and that you probably are asking about, we just don’t even see that in our data. So, right, I did – we did notice that CRO business and for biopharma CRO business in China throughout the year already had been weak, and I am sure Q3 was not an exception. That’s about it. That’s not going to answer all of your questions about – but you get a lot of color from other vendors that see more this monthly pattern or even weekly patterns, which we don’t.

Rachel Vatnsdal: Fair enough. Thanks. And then I just wanted to ask around budget plus dynamics within that high-single digit organic growth that you guys are assuming for 4Q. What’s your assumption on budget flush? Have you started to see any of those orders or customer conversations around that December dynamic, and yes, really any color there. Thank you.

Frank Laukien: We have been in this industry for a long time and budget flush is still one of these enigmatic terms to us. It doesn’t – and again, it is one of the things that I think applies much more to consumables and companies and for us, we are never really looking for that. And so we are just not a good data point to give you color on that. So, we have – just like in other years, we have no expectations for any budget flush, because it just doesn’t – it doesn’t work that way at Bruker. That’s a Bruker specific answer I realize. So, that I don’t need to frustrate you, Rachel, but budget flush for us isn’t one of the things that we look for and will there be one this year or not, can’t comment. We just don’t have the invites into that, I should say.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jack Meehan with Nephron Research. Your line is now open.

Jack Meehan: Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to ask a question on PhenomeX. First, could you talk about just what you are doing in terms of the integration through year-end, where that – maybe just a little bit more detail on what you are focused on? And then I wanted to clarify on the dilution commentary. So, you said it was slightly dilutive in 2024. I just wanted to clarify, is that incremental to the $0.12 in 4Q, or is that relative to the trend line from prior to the deal getting announced?

Frank Laukien: I will turn things over to Mark in a moment, but the slightly dilutive, I am not sure I fully understood the question. But obviously, that implies being much less dilutive per quarter than the $0.12 one-time bolus that we have as a headwind in Q4 ‘23. Again, when we give guidance in early February for next year, but much less per quarter than the $0.12 is what we mean by slightly dilutive. Now for your modeling, sorry, Mark, then I will turn things over to you. For your modeling, I assume that it’s a little bit more dilutive in the first half and a little less dilutive in the second half, but on average, it’s going to be much less dilutive. Guys, we just don’t want to give guidance today for ‘24. We are not going to do it, so that’s why we stick to adjectives. I know you would like numbers. Mark, without numbers, may I turn things over to you and you can at least qualitatively describe some of the strategy resetting and rightsizing with…