TFX
#That's an all-inclusive number for North America.
There are really two pieces to it.
One was in connection with the filing of our US federal tax return, where the actual expense came in less than what we had been accruing towards as the year had progressed.
And the second issue was related to an initiative to further simplify and rationalize our organizational structure.
So we transferred ownership of certain subsidiaries around the Teleflex group, and a byproduct of this was that it created an increase in the foreign tax credits that would be available to offset future taxes ---+ or US taxes on our non-[criminally] reinvested earnings.
Now, the other benefit of that movement was our ability to repatriate cash, which we did also in the third quarter.
So, there is really two impacts that are driving the rate in the third quarter.
As mentioned, those rates are not something that will impact the rate in future years or on a sustainable basis.
I think the opportunities over the next several years are going to continue to be robust.
One of the things we're seeing in the US market, by way of example here, is it is getting tougher for, let's call them, $100 million revenue companies, to be able to get a seat at the table at IDNs and at GPOs.
And so it's becoming more difficult for them ---+ the increased costs to get your product, for example through China, make global expansion tougher for companies of that size.
Even things like the medical device tax have a lot of those $50 million revenue companies just at the brink or below profitability.
So there have been an increasing number of environmental factors in the healthcare marketplace that make it more difficult for those size companies.
This year, our currency is a negative factor when we try to look at European assets because they have one view of what their sales increases is when they are doing their calculations in their own currency when we have to denominate back into dollars what it's going to do to us.
In many cases what looks like growth to them is actually negative to us by the time we go through the currency translation.
So that's having some short-term impact in terms of how we might see evaluation and they might see evaluation.
Again, once we see a more stable environment where currencies aren't a big issue that will start to evaporate a little it.
That's the only thing I think that's on the horizon that makes the market, at least in acquiring European assets, a little bit more difficult than normal.
So, help me understand what you see by ---+ what you mean by ---+.
(Multiple speakers).
Yes, so in the next 12 to 24 months I would be really surprised if you didn't see that.
Yes.
I think we're still not in the mindset of some kind of transformational acquisition that would be in the billions of dollars.
But, in that, I think our range now is probably in the $300 million to $700 million range where we'd consider that certainly capable, financially, for us to do that, and I would be very surprised if you didn't see one in that period.
Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us on the call today.
This concludes the Teleflex Incorporated third-quarter 2015 earnings conference call.
