GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GEHC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 11

Peter Arduini: Yes. Larry, I think particular to imaging, we obviously as well as us and pretty much everyone in other industries with the installed type products had some pent-up demand. And I mean that’s part of our backlog, right? And we were able to deliver a higher percentage of that. That typically is more in MR, CT, PET/CT, again some of the bigger installation-based products, but it’s affected the whole portfolio at some level. And so, Helmut mentioned the words we focused on making sure that we leaned in on getting the parts that we needed at the right time. It had a little bit of an impact on our cash flow, but we had the components available to ship, which then resulted in the higher growth. And I think with that, we’re going to see that into the first half.

Now we would expect that that will start moderating and get back to more classical historic growth rates. But what’s interesting is you speak with customers again back on the list of their top capital buys are, in many cases, diagnostic imaging equipment, MR ranks up their high. We’ve mentioned the OEC C-arms in our remarks. Anybody that’s doing any type of surgical imaging and outpatient center, that’s the preferred device. So it’s quite strong, but we are definitely running at a higher level. And our RPO or our backlog that we have is quite strong. And again, just to emphasize, we’ve got good visibility on that into 20 23 and well into the year.

Lawrence Biegelsen: Thank you. And Helmut, on €“ well, sales and margin cadence, appreciate the color. Maybe if you could help calibrate us a little bit more. How much lower do you expect second half organic growth? Is it going to be below the 5% to 7%? And then margins kind of how much lower in the first half, do you still expect to be down year year-over-year? Thanks for taking the question.

Helmut Zodl: Larry, So maybe I’ll reiterate how we look at the overall guidance for the full year and quarterly flows. So on revenue, we expect growth to be stronger in the first half, clearly and that is driven by the backlog and also how we have lined up really past and inventory in the first half accordingly. But the good news is going to be that we still expect sequential growth in the €“ into the second half. So typically, our Q3 and Q4 is higher than our Q1 and Q2. But growth rates, we expect to be slightly lower than what we are seeing in the first half accordingly. So that’s the side on the revenue. On the margin side, you will see, I think, more of the margin expansion in the second half as we expect some of those productivity initiatives to taking hold, especially around VCP and cost improvements on the gross margin side.

And the reason for that is really because we still have, as I think, Pete said that earlier, we still have elevated cost that is sitting in our inventory on our balance sheet. And as we flush that inventory through, we will have lower margins in the first half that then will improve into the second half. And we’re already seeing this based on those red flag parts of how much parts we have, how much parts we have to purchase at spot buys. And so that’s going to be the side on the margins and more of that in the second half. And maybe I’ll comment on cash flow also just to be clear on that also. So a very large piece of the cash flow given our seasonality in our business we expect to happen in the second half, less of cash is going to be generated in the first half because of interest payments, because of some of the supplier payments that are bigger in the first half as well.

Page 5 of 11