STERIS Q2 2022 Earnings Results & Report

STERIS EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.99
• Consensus EPS: $1.82
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.17
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.48
• EPS Beat Rate: 6 of last 8 quarters

STERIS Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.20 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.16 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$35.69 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

STERIS (NYSE:STE) (NYSE: STE) provides infection prevention and procedural products and services for healthcare, pharmaceutical, research, and other industries. Its offerings include sterilizers, washers and other equipment used to clean and sterilize medical devices and surgical instruments, as well as products for operating rooms and endoscopy procedures.

The company also provides equipment installation, maintenance, repair, and training, along with contract sterilization and laboratory testing services. These offerings support customers’ efforts to process medical equipment and help maintain controlled environments.

STERIS traces its origins to 1985 and serves customers around the world. Its operations combine equipment and consumables with services for hospitals and other healthcare providers, manufacturers, and research organizations.

STERIS Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Constant currency organic revenue grew 12% in Q2, including 130 basis points from a price increase and $346 million from acquisitions.
• Gross margin rose 120 basis points to 46.2% and EBIT margin improved 80 basis points to 23.3%, leading to EPS of $1.99 and debt leverage under 2.8×.
• Inflation drove $10 million of higher material and labor costs in Q2, with an expected additional $20 million+ impact in the second half that will pressure margins.
• Cantel Medical integration is progressing well, and STERIS expects to exceed its $25 million synergy target for the year.
• Full-year guidance is unchanged as management weighs currency headwinds from the euro and pound alongside ongoing supply-chain uncertainties.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the STERIS plc Second Quarter 2022 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Julie Winter, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Julie Winter, Investor Relations at STERIS plc]

Thank you, Grant, and good morning, everyone. As usual, speaking on today's call will be Mike Tokich, our Senior Vice President and CFO, as well as Dan Carestio, our President and CEO. I do have a few words of caution before we open for comments. This broadcast contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call without the express written consent of STERIS is strictly prohibited. Some of the statements made during this review are or may be considered forward-looking statements. Many important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those risk factors described in STERIS' securities filings. The company does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments.

[Julie Winter, Investor Relations at STERIS plc]

STERIS' SEC filings are available through the company and on our website. In addition, on today's call, non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted earnings per diluted share, adjusted operating income, constant currency organic revenue growth, and free cash flow will be used. Additional information regarding these measures, including definitions, is available in today's release, as well as reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures are presented during this call with the intent of providing greater transparency to supplemental financial information used by management and the board of directors in their financial analysis and operational decision-making. With those cautions, I will hand the call over to Mike.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone. It is once again my pleasure to be with you this morning to review the highlights of our second quarter performance. For the quarter, constant currency organic revenue increased 12% with growth across all segments. Growth was driven by organic volume as well as 130 basis points of price. Acquisitions total added $346 million to revenue in the second quarter, which is broken down by segment in the press release tables. To assist you with your modeling, I will share some color on the acquisition revenue contribution within the healthcare segment. Of the approximately $220 million in acquired revenue, about 65% is consumable revenue from both Key and Cantel Medical. About 20% of the balance is capital equipment revenue, with the last 15% being service revenue.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

We will not be breaking that down any further as it's already difficult to differentiate some product lines as we are integrating the businesses quickly, and that challenge will only increase with each passing quarter. Gross margin for the quarter increased 120 basis points compared to the prior year to 46.2% as favorable productivity, pricing, and acquisitions were somewhat offset by higher material and labor costs. Combined, material and labor costs were about $10 million in the quarter, significantly higher than we were expecting. As we look at the second half of the fiscal year, we anticipate that higher material and labor costs will continue to impact gross margin by approximately $20 million or more. EBIT margin for the quarter was 23.3% of revenue, an increase of 80 basis points from the second quarter of last year.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

As anticipated, we are starting to see some operating expenses, such as travel and sales and marketing costs return, somewhat limiting EBIT margin growth. The adjusted effective tax rate in the quarter was 22%, higher than last year, but in line with our expectations for the full fiscal year. Net income in the quarter increased to $200.3 million, and earnings per share were $1.99. Our balance sheet continues to be a source of strength for the company. Our leverage ratio at the end of the second quarter is now below 2.8x. As a reminder, we cash settled all of Cantel's convertible notes during the second quarter. The total cash settlement value was approximately $371.4 million. At the end of the quarter, cash totaled $383.5 million.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

During the first half, capital expenditures totaled $133.4 million, while depreciation amortization was $201.7 million, reflecting recent acquisitions. Free cash flow for the first half was $135.8 million. As anticipated, this is a decline from last year due to costs associated with the acquisition and integration of Cantel Medical and slightly higher capital spending year over year. With that, I will now turn the call over to Dan for his remarks.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Thanks, Mike, and thanks again to everyone for taking the time to join us today. Our fiscal 2022 is shaping up to be another record year for STERIS. Our first half turned out to be stronger than we anticipated, with constant currency organic growth across the business. In particular, growth in our AST segment remained strong, with 23% constant currency organic growth year to date, despite some tough comparisons in the second quarter of last year.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Healthcare has also rebounded nicely, with 17% constant currency organic growth in the first half and record backlog of $311 million at the end of the quarter for the legacy STERIS products. Life sciences consumables has stabilized, contributing 3% constant currency organic growth in the first half, and our capital equipment business backlog has grown to a record $98 million. Lastly, our newest segment, Dental, reported 10% growth for the quarter in line with our expectations. Underlying our performance, procedure volumes in the U.S. have held steady as hospitals have learned how to manage through the pandemic. While we continue to see pockets of the world that are more limited in procedure volume due to COVID outbreaks, overall, we believe procedure volume is moving closer to pre-pandemic levels.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

We are cautiously optimistic about the coming months as COVID cases appear to have peaked and are now once again receding. Despite the more difficult comparisons, we expect revenue to stay strong in our second half as we continue to benefit from these trends. We also continue to make progress on the integration of Cantel in the quarter. The majority of our staffing changes have been made, aligning STERIS to better serve customers, positioning us for growth going forward, and contributing to cost synergies. We are also making swift progress implementing Lean, and we are very pleased with how receptive our new colleagues are to our passion for continuous improvement. All said, we would expect to exceed our synergy cost targets for the year and also in total.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Looking at the full year, while we are increasingly confident in our ability to achieve our improved outlook provided last quarter, we are not increasing guidance further at this time. While we overachieved earnings in the second quarter, we have a few offsets that will likely impact the back half of the year. On the revenue side, our comparisons do get a bit more challenging, and we do expect some headwinds from FX, in particular from the euro and the pound. In addition, while our teams have done outstanding work to mitigate the supply chain challenges so far this year, it is difficult to predict the unknown implications the current environment may have on the second half of the fiscal year.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

All said, we are pleased with where we stand today in the underlying strength of our diversified business and remain optimistic that if it were not for supply chain and inflation uncertainties, we would be at the high end or above our adjusted EPS guidance range for the full year. We look forward to continuing to update all of you on our progress. Thank you, and I will now turn the call back over to Julie to open up for Q&A. Julie.

[Julie Winter, Investor Relations at STERIS plc]

Thank you, Mike and Dan, for your comments. Grant, would you please give the instructions and we can get started on Q&A?

[Operator]

Sure thing. We will begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Matthew Mishan with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Mishan, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Good morning. Congrats on a nice quarter in a difficult environment. Hey, Dan, I just wanna clarify the supply chain comments. First, are you seeing supply chain issues right now that are impacting your ability to deliver on product, and kind of, and I guess what I'm asking is, as you go out to your third and your fourth quarter, where are you potentially looking at having supply chain constraints? Does it impact you potentially with your backlog and capital equipment, and being able to deliver in 3Q and 4Q?

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, sure, Matt. What I would say is, to date, you know, other than the cost escalation of many of our precursor materials, we've been able to navigate the supply side of it and make sure that we have been able to keep up and meet customer demand, and, you know, we had a little bit excess sort of precursor inventory coming into the year as well, so safety. You know, in the current environment with the uncertainty around delivery time of these materials, it could potentially result in sort of extended lead times for deliveries.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

We don't see a scenario where stock out would happen or anything like that, but the ability to deliver on what now is over $400 million in backlog in the next six months, just from a, if we miss production slots, it's gonna be hard to get them back, if we miss them because of supply shortages. I believe our teams will continue to do the outstanding work that we've been doing thus far, but there are challenges.

[Matthew Mishan, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Understood. Switching over to AST, where your growth has still been exceptional. I typically view this business as more tied to medical devices, but I guess how should we think about biopharma now as a percentage of sales and opportunities moving forward? I'm just trying to understand like the total, you know, bioprocess opportunity and where we are with it.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, it is a high growth area for that business. Currently, you know, it's not a significant portion of the total business and the vast majority of what we do, say over 80% is what I would categorize as sort of traditional medical type product. Nonetheless, you know, it's grown very fast, and we have a very good position with the companies and our customers that are accelerating growth and making a lot of investment for their capacity.

[Matthew Mishan, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Okay. Just lastly, on the raw material inflation with the impacting, I just wanna clarify that you expect $20 million or more in the back half, so it's in the next two quarters. Whether or not you're seeing some of those costs, you know, kind of peak out and start to decline, where that would be sort of like a worst case scenario for you at this point.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, Matt, we experienced about $5 million of material and labor costs in Q1 that doubled in Q2. What we anticipate for the second half is $20 million or more for that combined third and fourth quarter. How that lays out by quarter, it's anyone's guess at this point in time. You know, you read a lot in the papers about supply chain is potentially alleviating, although we have not seen that yet. Obviously, it's impacting us more than we had just thought one quarter ago when we revised guidance. We wanted to make sure that you guys understood exactly what we're anticipating to be the impact as we move forward for the rest of the fiscal year.

[Matthew Mishan, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Okay. Thank you.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

You're welcome.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Dave Turkaly with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

[Dave Turkaly, Equity Research Analyst at JMP Securities]

Good morning. That material and labor, the $10 million, is that split pretty evenly? I guess the question I'd like to hit as well is, you know, if it's $10 million in the next two quarters, I mean, you beat the street significantly this quarter. I'm just curious as to, you know, why we might not see that happen again, maybe even along with the synergy comment you made looking at the back half of the year.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, Dave, the split is more like 60% materials, 40% labor, just to give you an understanding of that breakdown of $10 million. I think, Dave, you know, from our standpoint, there's just so much uncertainty surrounding the potential impact. You know, maybe we're being a little bit conservative at this point, but again, it's the best guess that we have as to the potential impact. Again, it's for two quarters, you know, we have been surprised in the amount that we've been impacted negatively on the gross margin side for both materials and labor.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Yeah. I would just add, Mike, to that. I think we have a fairly decent idea, you know, clearly of what's gonna happen relative to materials and labor cost escalation going into the third quarter. I don't know that we can say that with a high degree of confidence when we talk about fourth quarter. If we were a quarter out of fiscal year, I think we might have a different position here.

[Dave Turkaly, Equity Research Analyst at JMP Securities]

Got it. Thank you for that. You mentioned exceeding the cost synergy. I'd love you to put a parameter around that. I don't know if there's a percent or any kind of number you could give, but also, are there any revenue synergies? Because I think we hadn't spoken about those in the past. Thanks a lot.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Yeah. I would say that we're very confident on, you know, exceeding the $25 million target. Much of that is what we would say is in the bag because a lot of it has to do with ex-executive compensation and public company costs and a number of things that are already in the run rate. We still have some things to go get, you know, between now and the end of the year. As we do that, you know, we'll get more and more confident on what the actual number will be. We do know that it's gonna be north of the $25 million.

[Dave Turkaly, Equity Research Analyst at JMP Securities]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chris Cooley with Stephens. Please go ahead.

[Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens]

Good morning, and thank you for taking the questions, and congrats on another solid quarter. Maybe just two quick ones for me. I was hoping you could address profitability and maybe the composition of the backlog. Specifically when you look at operating profitability, you're hitting record levels both at AST and also at Life Sciences. Looking back through my model, I can't find it when it's been like this before. I guess in addition to the growth, I'd like to better understand what's enabling you to reach these, you know, these incredibly high levels of operating profitability, and how sustainable they are when I think about both the AST and the Life Sciences segments.

[Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens]

Is that, you know, revenue mix specific? Is that something that structurally that's changed? I just wanna better understand that, and then I'll follow back up on my backlog question.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

I'll hit on the AST, and I'll ask Mike to cover some of the Life Sciences because there's a little more detail there. You know, I think in terms of AST, we still haven't seen OpEx come back to where it was, you know, pre-COVID. We plan it to be back sooner than later. The other thing I would say is that we have a number of facilities that are operating at extremely high utilization levels right now. The nature of the business is such that there's a very high fixed cost on each one of these individual plants. You know, the difference of running at 80% utilization versus 97% or something like that has got major implications on the drop-through profitability of the operation.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

You know, as we've talked about a number of times, we're in the process of building out a number of expansions in that business. As those come online, you know, we're not gonna see any significant drop in profitability percentages. We do believe going forward it will stabilize in the, you know, in the ranges of where it is today.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Chris, on the life sciences side, echoing Dan's comment regarding the operating expenses, same in life sciences, we anticipated higher operating expenses throughout the year. Obviously, the COVID impact has slowed some of that, the travel and marketing and sales expenses, although we are starting to see those come back. That is one factor that is definitely adding to the increased operating profit. The other one you alluded to already, Chris, is mix. We continue to see very good growth out of the consumables business. With the addition of Cantel, the consumables business, although it was only up 1% organically, it is up almost 11% if you include the Cantel acquisition. We are seeing, as I think you understand, consumables are higher margins, tend to be higher margins for us. That is also helping drive the improved profitability margin.

[Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens]

Super. That really helps. Then just on the backlog, when I look at in total or just, you know, core STERIS, you know, record backlog that you're seeing there both in healthcare as well as in the life science sector, could you split out for us just kind of the composition of that backlog in terms of new build, et cetera, you know, when we think about the healthcare piece?

[Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens]

On the life science side, I continue to be on the wrong side of this equation, but, you know, it just remains extremely strong and I'm trying to grapple a little bit with where you're seeing the greatest level of demand right now and how we should think about that going forward. Is this kind of again a mid-single-digit or low double-digit type capital growth when we think about the life science component going forward over the next 12-24 months? Thanks so much.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Sure. This is Dan. You know what I would say on the healthcare backlog, it's really strong across all product segments at this point, whether that's surgical or IPT. Then in terms of project versus sort of short-term work, you know, a year ago we were almost exclusively long-term projects and builds and things like that. We've seen a significant recovery in the replacement business in the last, you know, six, seven months, I would say, to where it's kind of back to pre-COVID levels in terms of replacement type spending. Our backlog's still not maybe what it would've looked like proportionally two years ago before the pandemic, but the last sort of six months or so of order intake definitely is.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

In terms of the life science capital, you know, there's a lot of money being spent expanding, you know, production in terms of biologics, vaccines, and gene therapies, you know, all these different type of applications that require aseptic manufacturing environments. As we've discussed before, that's really STERIS's, you know, sweet spot. We tend to benefit on the consumable side of that. We tend to benefit in AST on the disposable side going into those manufacturing environments. Then we also tend to benefit on the capital equipment side, for VHP type equipment for sterilization, into those type environments as well.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

The other thing I would mention is we have seen, since the beginning of our fiscal year, recovery and sort of research type spending, which was really slow, during the pandemic. Much of that is state or federal funded public institutional spending. That dried up pretty bad last year. We have seen our replacement business and what we would categorize more as lab or research come back, at least on an order input, to what it would look like pre-pandemic.

[Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens]

Super. Appreciate all the color and congrats on the quarter.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mike Matson with Needham & Co. Please go ahead.

[Mike Matson, Senior Analyst at Needham & Co]

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess I'll start with the dental business. You know, I heard the 10% growth, so that's good to hear. But maybe talk about what you're seeing in that business. I think, you know, prior, you know, when Cantel was still separate, they were talking about, you know, seeing a kind of increased demand for infection prevention products 'cause of the pandemic. Is that sustainable? I think Cantel has talked about this being sort of a high single digit growth business over time. Do you kind of agree with that?

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

You know, I think it's early days for us at this point to put out any long-term projections on dental. Frankly, we're still learning the business. We like the performance sort of year to date anyways with STERIS. We do believe the team over there is doing a really nice job managing the business and also sort of the recovery coming out of the pandemic. You know, at this point, we do believe there's connection in terms of the infection control value piece. To be able to quantify that to you at this time, I just don't think we're in a position to do that yet.

[Mike Matson, Senior Analyst at Needham & Co]

Okay. No, that's fine. You know, you're one of a handful of med tech companies that has positive pricing. Is there any ability to maybe raise the prices a little more to offset some of the inflationary pressures or even like freight surcharges or anything like that?

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, I mean, what I would say is we're not a pure play med tech. I mean, if you think about it, we've got an awful lot of business that deals with medical manufacturing and also pharmaceutical manufacturing and now actually dental as well. Those have a little different structure around what can and can't be done in terms of pass-through costs. You know, what we've consistently done historically at STERIS is tried to pass through enough to basically cover as much of inflation as we can where reasonable and where the customers will accept it. You know, then we try to get the rest out of productivity gains within our manufacturing environments, which we've been pretty successful at over the years as well.

[Mike Matson, Senior Analyst at Needham & Co]

Okay, thanks. If I could just squeeze one more in on hospital capital spending. You know, it seems to be very strong capital spending in 2021, much better than I would have expected. What are you hearing about calendar 2022? Does it look like that, you know, it's gonna continue to be strong into 2022 as well?

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

I do not see it changing in the foreseeable future based on what we've seen consistently in terms of work intake and also new projects that are still out there for opportunities for STERIS going forward.

[Mike Matson, Senior Analyst at Needham & Co]

Great. Thanks.

[Operator]

Again, if you like to ask a question press star then one, star then one to ask your question. Our next question comes from Michael Polark with Baird. Please go ahead.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird]

Hi, good morning. I wanna go back to Mike's comments on these material and labor costs, and I'm trying to understand what had previously been considered in guidance and what is incremental today that's limiting the guidance updates. I heard $5 million in the first quarter, $10 million in the second quarter. You raised the earnings guidance after the first quarter. Presumably, that raise included the $5 million in the quarter and probably considered the number for 2Q. You know, is that fair? You know, and what of that amount is incremental in the forecast today? Is it the full $20 million for 2H, or is it a portion of that and because you had a placeholder in before? Any color here on those numbers and how they relate to the progression of the forecast would be helpful.

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, certainly, Mike. So as you're right, we did incur $5 million in Q1, and when we did increase guidance, we anticipated an additional $10 million for the remaining three quarters. We incurred $10 million in Q2, so the $20 million plus is all incremental to our revised outlook at this point in time, which is one of the reasons why we're holding our outlook steady compared to where we raised last quarter and also compared to how we exceeded the second quarter results. Hopefully that ties out and makes sense to you.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird]

Yes, that's very helpful. Just to put a final fine point on it, back to the $5 million and the progression and the build of these numbers, this is all incremental to the initial outlook that you put out, before the fifth year, correct?

[Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO at STERIS plc]

That is correct, Mike.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird]

Yeah. Okay. Just more broadly on supply chain, Dan. You know, what are the raw materials that matter for STERIS most? And is this stuff for your consumables business, for your equipment production, both? You know, just curious for a bit more detailed color on what are the major items that you're watching and which businesses are potentially most impacted?

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

I mean, it's our concerns are across, you know, equipment and also consumables, especially on the chemistry side. You know, that's the one that we're really watching to make sure that we always have adequate amount of precursor chemistry to continue to make our finished products. In terms of the other applications, whether it's components that go into manufacturing capital equipment, whether it's electronics or steel or framing or whatever, that's more cost management at this point as opposed to timing, because we are seeing cost escalation there. Trust me, there are issues across every aspect of manufacturing environments right now, in light of delivery times and just general availability and things of that nature.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird]

If I can sneak one more in. Would appreciate an update on EPA's progress on these, you know, potentially updated ethylene oxide emission standards, where we are in that rulemaking cycle, what milestones may be ahead here in the next, you know, three to 12 months, or at least your latest expectation on that. Specifically, there was an update, losing track of time, two to three weeks ago, EPA, I believe, sent letters to, close to 30 EO facilities in the U.S., asking for those facilities to report emissions data starting in 2023. Historically, this was voluntary. STERIS had some facilities on that list. I'd also be specifically curious for your feedback to that development. Thank you.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

Yeah, sure. This is Dan. What I would say is, I mean, we are in close communication with the EPA on this issue, and, you know, we always fulfill any requests that they have from a regulatory perspective. We're working with them to make sure they have the appropriate data from STERIS. You know, in addition, we're optimistic that we do see some sort of a proposed rule sometime in the first calendar quarter. I personally had originally hoped for early January. That's TBD, but hopefully we'll see something sooner than later out of the agency that gets us to a final path.

[Dan Carestio, President and CEO at STERIS plc]

In the interim, you know, we've made some significant investments ahead of any regulation in anticipation of any change, where, you know, our facilities are now down to just tying up a few minor things in terms of what we think are enhanced improvements ahead of any regulatory NESHAP rule that might change the requirements to operate.

[Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Julie Winter, investor relations, for any closing remarks.

[Julie Winter, Investor Relations at STERIS plc]

Just wanted to take a sec to thank everybody for joining us. I know it's a busy earnings season time, and we look forward to catching up with many of you offline.

[Operator]

This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Julie Winter, Investor Relations
• Mike Tokich, SVP and CFO
• Dan Carestio, President and CEO

Analysts

• Matthew Mishan, VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc
• Dave Turkaly, Equity Research Analyst at JMP Securities
• Chris Cooley, Managing Director at Stephens
• Mike Matson, Senior Analyst at Needham & Co
• Michael Polark, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Baird