The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Al White: Yes, let me hit that second one. So no, we have not really seen anything with respect to a trade down or softness in the contact lens marketplace at this point in time. As a matter of fact, we’re continuing to hear from some of the big retailers and buying groups out there, including in the U.S. and around the world. Challenges they’re having with respect to staffing and whether that staffing is office workers or even optometrists, finding optometrist and getting optometrist to work enough hours. So now, we’re in a good spot from that we haven’t seen that activity. What Brian said, yes, we are trying to incorporate some of that just to be a little conservative within our guidance, I think that makes sense. On the Americas, yes, we had a good quarter.

Alex is running that business for us now. He’s doing a really, really nice job. We’ve just got some great people on our America sales team that that are executing really well. So we were kind of grown in line with market there for a while. Maybe we’re kind of shaking that loose a little bit now and starting to get rolling, getting sorry, MyDay Energys into the market is going to be another step forward. So, it’s only one quarter, I don’t want to attach too much to it. But certainly you can’t have a second good quarter without a first one. So a step in the right direction.

Jason Bednar: Yes, no, well said, and I appreciate that. Maybe just another maybe follow-up to clarifying point in some earlier questions. I don’t think you’d typically bifurcate the growth that you see in different channels. But can you talk about directionally, how much stronger your private label business is relative to sales that are going into private practices? As the delta between those groups, one to two point, three to four points? How should we think about that?

Al White: Yes, actually, they’re probably pretty even right now, we did see a little bit more strength in our branded products for several quarters there last year, a lot of that tied to MyDay and a lot of success we were seeing in MyDay, but right now, from the numbers, there’s not a big difference, we’re getting kind of similar growth, if you will, from our, what I have a tendency called customized solutions, all that customer brands and so forth that are out there. And the direct sales, if you will, to optometrists offices, so forth. So I wouldn’t at this point in time, I wouldn’t highlight really a swing in any direction from that.

Jason Bednar: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from a line of Matthew Mishan from KeyBanc. Please proceed.

Matthew Mishan : Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess this is for Brian. Could you elaborate further on kind of operational efficiency, kind of where that’s coming from? Is that more of a gross margin type driver for you. And then how should we think about gross margin year-over-year now?

Brian Andrews: Yes, I mean, we’re going after several different cost containment initiatives, I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the consolidation of our specialty, eye care division into our core, long term, that’ll be a gross margin benefit, but for the short term, that’s going to be more OpEx benefit. We’ve gone after some other cryopreservation activities, including consolidating our high growth, kind of a sub region within Eastern Europe and Middle East Africa, into our European region. And so that’ll drive some better efficiencies. So, I would say, it’s probably more of an OpEx play than anything else. Within gross margin our guidance still is — implied in our guidance is gross margins up year-over-year, a little bit more from currency than on a constant currency basis.

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