Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Vik Chopra of Wells Fargo.
Vikramjeet Chopra: Congrats on the deal flows. So two for me. I guess on the first one, maybe on the guidance, you provided the top line guidance, which you increased as a result of NuVasive, but you get EPS the same at $2.30. Maybe just talk about why the EPS guide is not being raised for deal close? And then I just have 1 follow-up, please.
Keith Pfeil: Yes, sure. Thanks, Vic. This is Keith. Really, the primary driver of that is you have to remember the share count is increasing. So we had, give or take, 102 million shares coming into — or coming out of the second quarter. That grew to about 115 million here in Q3, and that will grow to about 140 million in Q4. So your share count is really growing there, and that’s really the driver of keeping up to 2.30.
Vikramjeet Chopra: Okay. Great. And then I was just wondering on the hiring trends, maybe talk about what the hiring trends were like in Q3 heading into Q4? And how you see your recruiting and retention efforts shaking out given the deal close?
Daniel Scavilla: Thanks, Vik. No, no problem. So admittedly, we obviously went a bit slower in the third quarter, even though we are getting a lot of activity with competitive reps, but just making sure that we fleshed out where our territories would be and what we’re doing. We’re on the tail end of that now, which is good news for us as we move forward. . And so we’re going back as we enter into the fourth quarter, ramping up competitive recruiting, been very active with it. And like I said, now that we really know and define the seats, we’re able to see where some of those opportunities are. And I think, like I said, it was an okay third quarter intentionally a bit slower, we’ll accelerate in the fourth quarter now that we’ve got the road map in place.
Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Steve Lichtman from Obenheimer.
Steven Lichtman: I appreciate the color on the surgeon overlap. Can you give us a sense of what the overlap is by account, which I assume would be higher than that?
Daniel Scavilla: Steve, probably not right off the top of my head. What I would tell you is it’s not materially different where you would get into because keep in mind, if you’ve got a surgeon, which is what you’re right, we were talking about and it’s there. This is okay. We’ll keep the reps in both of those places. We’re capable of doing that if we can support the sales. So we’re not parsing this out by account, we still keep a surgeon focus where that is. So I would certainly agree with you that, that would get up higher, but it’s not going to get into the teens of an overlap or anything material that way when it really looks at it. Again, but we’re more focused on the surgeon side of this than it is by a hospital or location.
Steven Lichtman: Okay. Got it. And Keith, again, thanks for the color on the layout of the cost synergies. What is going to be a cash outlay to achieve those synergies? And will that be about the same percentages in terms of the timing of those costs?
Keith Pfeil: That’s a great question. Our assumption is that the cost to achieve the synergy will be $0.50 on the dollar. And I would lay that out over the trajectory of the 3 years equally as I stated in my prepared statements.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matthew O’Brien of Piper Sandler.
Matthew O’Brien: Starters on the enabling tech side of things, how are those early conversations going with placing a robot with Nuva. Like I appreciate the uncertainty to some weakness in sales on the Pulse side of things as well, but any color on that would be helpful.
Daniel Scavilla: Sure, I’ll take that. So let’s start with the Globus enabling tech. Like I said, we’ve actually been working with our former NuVasive counterparts to train them on the systems, get them familiar with what we offer, understand where these things are going and create that familiarity as we start getting out to the surgeons. We’ve not been pushing hard on surgeons. We have done several, but the real goal is to make sure that we have 1 team that can support this and do it in a way that’s nondisruptive. So that’s been representing a and it will accelerate into the fourth quarter as we get ready for next year that way. The Pulse system itself, I think there is a natural hesitancy of customers who thought we were going to pull it and get rid of it.
We’ve been communicating that our intent is to support it not only as is and in the field, but actually enhance it and finish up some of the in-progress ways to expand its capabilities. And we’ll make sure that we take that forward in a way that they can perform the functions they want with their systems.
Matthew O’Brien: That’s helpful. And just as a quick follow-up. Any color on upcoming pieces of the enabling tech ecosystem. How big of a deal is it to combine the legacy offering with neuromonitoring, the Nuva neuromonitoring down the road? Any idea in terms of Excelsius software updates for areas of target? And then any update to the extended reality headset?
Daniel Scavilla: Sure. So well, you kind of hit a lot of those things. So one of the first things coming out is going to be our naphub and the instrumentation for that so that we’ve got the robotic navigation through GPS and now we’ll come out and do the freehand navigation with our hub that we plan to put out. A key part of that can be, as you said, the augmented reality headset. The anticipation is an approval, obviously, in 2024. I’m hesitant to give you a date, but I would tell you in midyear, possibly into third quarter is what I’m looking at, depending on what we get or push back from FDA. So we’re waiting for that through the thing. As far as one of your questions, which have I understood it correctly, we are evaluating the benefits of Pulse and neuromonitoring and seeing where it would make sense, if at all to build that capabilities into our existing enabling tech and then, in fact, blend them together.
