Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ:BRKR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Frank Laukien : We’re not giving color, numerical color. So we’d rather not comment because we don’t get quarterly color this time. There’s nothing that we, if there was something very unusual, we try to call it out. But I just want to make sure that I’m not giving additional numerical color that we didn’t intend to.

Operator: Our next question will come from Jack Meehan with Nephron Research.

Jack Meehan: Thank you. Good morning. Wanted to talk about Nano, so 17% organic growth for the year over 20% of fourth quarter just really like an outstanding year. Can you dissect for us how much of this is coming from things like semiconductor versus the investments in spatial? And how big is that business today?

Frank Laukien : Oh, yes, I mean, the spatial and fluorescence microscopy is still much, much smaller than the semiconductor and advanced electronics. Spatial biology and including the adjacent areas that we group up there, which include fluorescence microscopy, but also the new spatial neuroscience businesses that we’ve acquired, particularly in Inscopix are going to be needle moving in 2023, but they’re still quite a bit smaller than the semiconductor business, And the semiconductor business is very strong backlog. We’re not to expose to the memory area where indeed there is an oversupply in some areas that are a bit commoditized. But we expect semiconductor orders to be weaker and revenue will not grow steeply in 2023 in that area. But it’s, it does, it looks like a soft landing and more than made up or at least made up by others areas of strength in our portfolio. In €˜22, semiconductor was a strong contributor margin wise and growth wise, for sure.

Jack Meehan: Right, then wanted to move over BioSpin. Just ask about the single-story gigahertz NMR, can you give us an update on how many orders you have for that at this point? And just expectations for our ability to scale the manufacturing.

Frank Laukien : So far, we just have three orders, two of which we delivered in Q4, we announced them all, they coincidentally all came in the second quarter of last year. So two of them, we delivered ahead of schedule that was just really amazing that a new product could really mature so quickly and indeed be delivered and getting smooth customer installation. So we’re kind of thrilled with how that’s going. And yes, there is another one that we expect to have in €˜23 revenue. There is quite a bit of activity. There’s quite a few opportunities and things in the pipeline where people are trying to raise funding. But no orders to report yet. No additional orders report yet.

Operator: Our next question will come from Josh Waldman with Cleveland Research.

Josh Waldman: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple for you. I guess first on the margin guide. Frank, I wonder if you could provide more context on where the R&D and Commercial Investments are being targeted? And you kind of what the timeline is for when we start to see these show up in revenue growth? I mean it sounds like these are a bit more kind of one time-ish investments that show up in €˜23 and roll off in €˜24. Is that right? And then, I guess, Gerald, I guess a follow up on that. And you alluded to it a bit, I think in the prepared remarks, but curious if you’re still targeting the 21.5% out margins and $3 of earnings for €˜24? Or is this kind of change that target?