DHR
#Thank you.
Hi, <UNK>.
We continue to be bullish on those markets.
Yes, obviously there's been some volatilities certainly in those markets, certainly in terms of the way they have been trading.
But, and of course, our exposure, as you mention, is largely in the Pall business, as well as across our life science platform and more specifically around AB SCIEX.
Our ---+ specifically, our pharma exposure in life sciences is about probably 20% or 25% of that business specifically goes into that market.
In the case of Pall specifically, it's about one-third of their business is biopharma related.
The growth rates there continued to be very strong throughout the course of the quarter.
These are critical applications that, to some extent, are a bit insulated from the core volume side of what's going on inside of those facilities.
In other words, whether you're making a large volume or a small volume, you're still going to be running that equipment and consuming some of our products.
On the research side, the research investments, while they are shifting around a bit, continue to be relatively good.
So I think, in general, we're staying the course there and we think there's still great opportunity ahead.
Well, I hope we're not looking at 2008, 2009.
Obviously, that was a good period for us.
In that 2008, 2009 period, we acquired almost 20 ---+ brought in almost 20 companies, and not surprisingly, those are among our best returns for the Company.
I don't think we're heading into that, but the environment's getting tougher.
We talked earlier about the IPO market being tough here, and I think that bodes well.
I think that bodes quite well for Newco, given the choppiness in the industrial sector, given a little less competition from private equity.
We've talked about roughly $2 billion of capacity the rest of this year and into next year.
But as we get towards the end of, middle, end of next year, that number's going to jump back up a lot.
So we're not ---+ <UNK> suggested we're not shutting down.
We're still working hard, looking at activities, looking at possibilities both for <UNK>aher and at Newco.
Great, thanks.
Thank you, <UNK>.
Thank you, Dean.
So specific to municipal budgets in the overall municipal water market, it's a growth market, it's interesting, right, because you ---+ we could talk about it as a growth market today; everything is relative.
We haven't historically thought of the North American muni market as a growth market on a relative basis, but today, it really probably is.
To your point, it's growing better than a lot of other markets that are much more challenged.
And I think the way I would describe it, <UNK>, is that in contrast to probably the last three or four years where those budgets were flat or down, largely recovering from a pretty challenging housing market in so many areas around the US, today we would say those budgets are probably growing modestly.
A lot of muni budgets are probably growing maybe in the 2% or 3% range, and that's 2% or 3% better or more than what they were growing probably in the last three or four years.
So there are good opportunities there.
They continue to contribute well to, certainly to Hach Lange, as well as to Trojan.
Specific to your question about Trojan, we have seen the bidding activity up this year, and we've seen overall revenue converting that business, that bidding activity into revenue up this year as well.
So probably one of the better markets where we participate today and clearly with leading position, we believe we're gaining share in water quality.
In the Pall business, Pall does have a position in municipal water.
It is not one of their larger businesses, but we believe there are opportunities there.
And we have the teams at Trojan, as well as at Pall, looking together at where there might be cooperative opportunities.
It could be on certain projects or certain opportunities relative to technology where bringing filtration, as well as ultraviolet treatment together may be a great opportunity for a customer.
It's early days there.
We're just getting into the 100-day strategic plans across those vertical markets, but it is a good position to start with and we'll see what we can do.
<UNK>, they were a little bit under the 3%.
They were 2%, 2.5%, led by both by Gilbarco and Matco.
Thank you, <UNK>.
<UNK>, I don't know if we're looking at a very different dynamic in Q4 of this year versus last year.
We did see a spike in payables at the end of the third quarter.
That sometimes happens when we have a quarter end that's in the following month.
So we actually closed the quarter in October, as opposed to September 29th, September 30th.
That should normalize back in the quarter.
We tend to have pretty good working capital performance as we get toward the end of the year.
That should be another contributor.
So I don't think ---+ I don't see a very different frame than what we had last year.
We're still working through the Pall numbers.
We think there's some meaningful cash flow opportunities there, not only in the working capital side, but also on the CapEx, managing CapEx a little differently there.
But we'll talk about both of those more in time.
I don't remember.
What I'm continuing to say is our expectation is 2016, we still believe it will be the end of the year, but that could change.
And if there is a change, it would be to the positive.
We'll know more here in a couple of months.
Thank you, <UNK>.
<UNK>, thank you.
We're continuing to make progress at Beckman.
We track our customer retention and we track our win rates very closely on a month-to-month basis.
We're confident, as we look at the combination of retention and win rates, that we're adding to our growth position as we look out into 2016 and 2017.
Obviously, some of what we see in retention and adding menu to retained accounts, as well as new customer accounts, don't necessarily manifest themselves in the quarter in which you've won them.
In fact, oftentimes, it may take 6 to 12 months for those to materialize.
So I think we're confident we're continuing to make progress, strengthening the portfolio through new products, continuing to see good growth in the high growth markets, but it's a journey.
We still have work to do.
We're not yet at the growth rates that we would like to see relative to the peer group.
You highlight them well, and we're ---+ but we are making progress and we're confident in the opportunities.
Well, we have publicly named Jim, obviously as a leader, but his entire L1 team, with one exception, has been named.
They are all internal folks.
And a fair number of people at the L2 level, the level below that, have also been named.
We're off to a good start on that front.
Thank you, <UNK>.
Thank you, Eric.
Thanks, everyone, for joining us.
We're around all day for questions.
