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Biotech / Medical : Trickle Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (576)	4/27/2001 6:08:09 PM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1784

Rick, It seems important to follow the industry bellweathers. I consider these to be ABI, IVGN, SIAL, WAT, maybe QGENF. So I just finished listening to the WAT call. They are adamantly upbeat. They beat estimates by a couple of pennies, I think. - Their life sciences customers show no signs of cutting budgets for their products. They make up a good 70%+ of their MS customers, a somewhat smaller % of LC customers. Industrial applications (magnetic sector, some LC, thermal analysis) are perhaps 10% of the biz, and they aren't seeing any further slowing there than they saw last q. - Data Products (part of the LC biz, mostly) had been disappointing due to post Y2K blues and to customer confusion over the impacts of 21CFR Pt. 2 (concerning elcetronic signatures, I believe). Negative sales growth has turned slightly positive and they are cautiously optimistic for slow improvement there. Small part of the overall business. - Saw no sales variability in regions. U.S. accounts for 40 - 45%, Eur. 35%, Japan 10%, Asia ~8%, others (CAN, South Am., etc.) 2%. - $150 million per quarter free cash flow yielding improved interest income. - Inventories up, but this is seasonal, due to traditional spring launches (i.e. post-Pittcon). In absolute terms, they should be static for the next few quarters; relative to sales, dropping slightly going forward. - Continues to guide ~15% top line growth. Sees ongoing foreign currency impacts of a penny or two per quarter, much like IVGN. Comfortable with 1st Call estimates within a couple of pennies. - New products announced at Pittcon shipping by end of 2nd Q, with one or two minor exceptions (variations on an instrument that might not ship unitl early 3rd q). - Sees "on the fringe" new growth coming from ADME-Tox in drug discovery, and in proteomics. Regarding the latter, most proteomic related demand is so far from gov't funded labs and institutes, academic labs, and some pharma. Sees the build out of various "protein factories" (where much of the commercial interest seems to be focused) announced in the recent past as starting to get to the stage of being supplied with instruments in the next few quarters. - Also in the future, there was brief mention of the collaboration with Sandia to develop microseperation systems that could be integrated into the LC/MS systems for higher throughput, but no products from that for several years. In sum, TrickleMavens, it looks like ABI and MDCC got hit by sequencing sniper fire, while the rest of the trickle warriors are unscathed. HQ seems to think the whole platoon is gone, and there could be buying ops in this sector on any fresh pullback. BDAL doesn't report for a while, but has given reassurances in the interim. Looks like last year financing frenzy is still helping the trickle companies that are executing well. I like IVGN under 60, and the rest of the bellweathers where I recently bought 'em. WAT, high 30s, ABI under 25,etc. Even TECH, mostly a consumables company, seems to be gaining support from IVGN. OK, time for the Trickle manager to have a weekend, if not a life. Addio and Cheers, Tuck