Michael Petras: Yeah. Well, they’re on our board. So I do chat with them quite a bit. At the end of the day, they’re our shareholders, they’ve got to make decisions on when they sell the stock. They’re not going to be reckless about it, they’re very thoughtful on that. It’s been a great investment for them. They’re very supportive of the company. And over time, they’ll eventually sell their position, as we all know, they’re private equity firms, and that’s what they do. But overall, they’re being very thoughtful on how they ramp that down. They want to make sure they’re not doing it in a reckless manner.
Patrick Donnelly: Understood. Thanks, Michael.
Michael Petras: Thanks, Patrick.
Operator: The next question will come from Michael Polark with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Michael Polark: Thank you. Good morning. Nordion 1Q look, I hear the thematic comment, but the range we could paint you could drive a bus through. So like what’s the right number for Nordion revenue in the first quarter? Should we look at ‘22 and ‘21, $25 million, $30 million, something like that or not quite that high?
Michael Petras: Yeah. So we’re — Michael, we’re not going to get into particulars on individual businesses by quarter. It will be up from last year. It won’t be as high as 2022, is the way I would think about it. It’s just — last year wasn’t really abnormally low because we came in a position., As you recall, last year, we hardly had any inventory at all coming into the year.
Michael Polark: The follow-up below the line interest expense and tax. The question on tax is why is the tax rate so high? And is there a path to get it lower? And then on interest expense, I’m just trying to do the bridge ‘23 to ‘24. Jon, here, the comment is clear on Illinois, it was excluded last year, it’s included this year. If I do that, $116 million of interest expense last year, if Illinois is probably $35 million. So now I’m $150 million and you’re guiding $170 million to $180 million. What else is going on there? Is that just cycling in kind of higher rates generally on the overall balance, or are you modeling an incremental draw at some point in the year? I just want to fully understand the bridge from ‘23 to ‘24 on interest?
Jon Lyons: Yeah. Thanks for the question. And I just want to make sure that folks understand and clarify. As we look at this, we reported today $0.81 of EPS on an adjusted basis for 2023. When we make these adjustments, right, the new baseline for comparison is $0.71. And yeah, the tax adjustment there sticks out a little bit leading to a higher tax rate. The trick we have here on our tax rate and why it’s elevated is our excess interest expense that we can’t deduct for US tax purposes that — because of our outlook, not being able to deduct that in the future and get the benefit, we have to take a valuation allowance against that, which leads us to a higher tax rate. Continuing to grow is a path to reducing the tax rate over time and lowering things like interest expense that drive up US taxable income and our ability to use the interest deductions will help improve it.
Michael Petras: So Mike, the other thing I would just add, there’s no incremental new debt contemplated in the guide. And the number that we finished last year at $143 million compared to the guide of $170 million to $180 million, that’s just the timing run out of the loan that we put in last year and that rolling out is for a full year and also the higher interest rate environment. That’s all.
Michael Polark: Got it. Thank you.
Michael Petras: Okay, great. Any other questions, operator? Is that it, Chuck?
Operator: That is it. I would like to pass the call back over to Mr. Petras for any closing remarks.
Michael Petras: Great. Thank you, everybody for getting together this morning. As you can see, we’re really proud of what we accomplished in 2023. We’re excited and optimistic about 2024. We have a great business here that plays a critical role in healthcare. We have sticky customer relationships. We continue to bring real value to our customers day in, day out. But really, we’re providing a safe environment for our employees, the patients and the communities where we operate. So we’re really proud of what the team is doing, and we look forward to more conversations with you all in 2024. Thank you, and have a great day. Bye-bye.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
