We're at time here, so we'll go ahead and get started. Very pleased to welcome Raul Parra, Chief Financial Officer of Merit Medical. Have a bunch of questions. Happy to open it up to the audience if there are questions as well. I was hoping to sort of start a little bit higher level and then go into some of the details. You've thought in a lot of different settings about this, founder-led to founder-inspired. You just did this re-segmentation. Yeah. Difference in reporting structure, change in the way you're running the business. Seems like a lot of stuff. Yeah. Happening at once. How are you keeping it all straight? Like, where are you in this transition, and how should we just think about the operating. Yeah. Dynamics going forward? I think that's a great question. I think, internally, from our perspective, it doesn't feel like a lot. Obviously, ever since kind of Foundations for Growth, which was our previous LRP, we were preparing for a CEO transition. It was very clear that Fred was going to be retiring. We were setting up some foundational stuff under Foundations for Growth, and obviously that accelerated in Continued Growth Initiatives as we knew that. The reporting changes, quite frankly, I've been wanting to do for a while. It's just, you know, what you guys don't see is that the business, internally, talks how we currently, the new reporting style. There was this reconciliation process that kind of went in, between the finance guys and the rest of the business, as we reported out. When Martha came on, the first question she asked me, she's like, "Hey, Raul, help me make sense of this. We've got the internal reporting that says this, we've got our 10-K that says this, and we're telling investors this. How do I reconcile it?" I basically looked at her and said like, "Don't. We've got a few options for you. We've been waiting for the CEO transition. Give us a week or two, we'll present them to you, and then you can kind of pick what feels kind of natural to you." That's what she did. She went with the foundational and therapeutic, which I thought was a great call. It just makes it significantly easier for us as we kind of run the business. One of the things that you guys haven't seen is, internally, under Foundations for Growth, we had set up these platforms. Now, we can hold the platforms more accountable. We're all kind of talking the same numbers and language, and it just makes it a lot easier. One of the themes that we've seen across the whole industry has been, there's been a lot of changes in reporting structure. We've also seen a lot of changes in the way companies are running, whether it's, say, hear about verticalizing businesses, getting closer to the customer. Can you do that on this platform strategy? There's a lot of products within each of these segments. Like, does this structure allow you to have the same customer centricity as your competitors? Yeah. Again, it's not new. We've been running it essentially, I'll call it kind of baby stepping through it, since Foundations for Growth, so five years. It's not something we turned on last month when the reporting changed. We've been gradually giving them more responsibility, and w e're vertically integrated already. We're very close to the customer already. All these things just come naturally to us. It's really just the alignment of how the business is run, and I think Martha has given more responsibility to those platforms now, just given that she's new to the business, and obviously, I don't know what Fred could do, given that he built the place brick by brick. It's different than what Martha can do. Expected it. There's more responsibility to those platforms. I think the big change kind of this year is that our Marketing and R&D Head are very kind of tied at the hip, each of the platforms has a marketing and an R&D person that's tied to it. So, we're really focused on making sure that we deliver products to our sales force that they can sell in the spaces that they want to sell and that customers want. I think there's greater alignment from that standpoint. It's actually going to get us closer to [audio distortion]. And do each of these platforms kind of operate as their own? Is it similar to if you have a product owner, or what's the autonomy of each of the platforms? Do they just roll up into these operating segments? How does it actually work on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. Well, they're not business units. We're not of scale to have business units. There is shared resources in certain cases. But yeah, they basically, they're in charge of their products within their platforms. Okay. I know you gave multiple years of disclosures on an annual basis when you. Yeah. Provided this updated outlook. As you go into each of those, there were a few that kind of stood out as OEM in the past couple of years, kind of flattish, other businesses seeing bigger growth. As you look forward, which of those platforms do you expect to lead total company growth? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the nice thing about the portfolio. We generally think that it can all deliver. When you look at kind of the foundational side of things, the three-year CAGR on that was 6%. When you look at the therapeutic, that was 11% [audio distortion] kind of start to kind of dig down. Let's just talk about OEM. I think we're very confident that mid to high single digits is kind of where that business will run on a year-over-year basis. The nature of OEM is that it will ebb and flow. It can be a choppy business. I remember a couple of years ago when they were growing at 15%, 20%, everybody would ask me, "Hey, is this the new normal, Raul?" I would say, "Absolutely not. Pump the brakes. Please put your model around 15% to mid to high single digits. That's really what you should think about it. This business will slow down eventually." I was wrong for about three years in a row, then, finally, they kind of came back into that mid to high single digits where we kind of expect them to be. But if you look at the rest of the therapeutic platforms, I mean, we just did an acquisition for our endoscopy segment, right? I think they've got additional products to sell. We feel really optimistic about that. You look at our oncology platform, again, we just did an acquisition there with View Point. SCOUT was doing great already. You tack on View Point, we're expecting growth out of there. Our cardiac platform has been doing really good. Those guys have some new products coming in the pipeline. We feel good about that. Obviously, OEM bouncing back will also help. You look at our vascular bag, again, doing very well. I think the foundational products are really just enablers for those therapeutic kind of, you know. We feel, o verall, pretty positive about the portfolio. How do you think about just sort of framing growth? I think one of the things investors always struggle with with stories like this is there are a lot of movement, there's a lot of things. Yeah. To like grab onto. You're like, oh, it becomes [audio distortion] WRAPSODY because it's like a PMA product. Yeah. It seems super identifiable, but it's like $7 million. Like, okay, fine. Whatever. Yeah. Like, how do you think about texturizing the business and divorcing it from, we're just a utilization-exposed company till we have some more discrete growth drivers? Well, I think that's why we're excited about the reporting. I think over time, you guys will start to see what procedures we play in and what areas we're in, and so I think it'll make it easier for you guys to generally have a better understanding of where that growth is. I think in our historical reporting, quite frankly, it was very hard to kind of understand, where the hell are these guys playing at? People really struggled with it, which is why I think WRAPSODY was such a highlighted product, right? It was easy for people to say, "Well, I know how many procedures are there, and I know what the ASP is, and I can really kind of assign value to that." What we're trying to do with the new reporting is hopefully give you guys a little bit more color as to what procedure [audio distortion]. Hopefully, that makes [audio distortion] a ssign some values. As you maybe deconstruct the growth a little bit further, how should we think about just pure volume growth, pure price, innovation-driven mix? How do you kind of break apart. Yeah. CGI and maybe just the business going forward? Well, most of our growth continues to be from volume. Pricing has helped over the last few years, and it'll continue to help, but volume is the primary growth driver at Merit. Obviously, we're very consistent in launching new products, which also helps. As you kind of describe the market, when I look at the business, it seems like you're playing sort of in the periphery of a lot of attractive categories. Yeah. You're sort of hanging around the hoop. You're not going to go head-to-head with super large, well-resourced competitors on the playing field. Yeah. How do you think about just the strategy and how you select what market to play in and what products to go after? I think it all starts with our foundational products, right? I think when you look at the kind of therapeutic procedures that are out there, there's not much you can do without an access, a delivery device, and closure, right? Those are all kind of the foundational products of the business. When we look at it, we feel like we're in a really good spot where we get to play with some of the big guys, but we're not actually competing directly with them. If you think about the portfolio, when I listen to kind of the narrative around View Point that Martha described, I think one of the things she talked about was you have mammograms, then biopsies, and then within the biopsy population, sort of have your super high-end products, and then you sort of saw demand for, I don't know if you call it down trading or. Yeah, we call it good and best, right? Yeah. Good and best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good, yeah. Good and best. Yeah. I know it's early, but maybe give us some sense of how that's playing out, and then maybe as a corollary, are there other pieces of your portfolio where you're selling best, but good might be acceptable? Look, I think there is a little bit of cannibalization that we baked into our modeling, just naturally. When there's a high-risk kind of outcome that the doctor's seeing, they're going to use SCOUT. I think what we've seen is that maybe the cases that aren't as risky, there was hesitation from the doctor saying, "Well, man, this is pretty expensive to use on something that could or could not be an issue." That's the market that we really get to fill with View Point. It essentially kind of triples the TAM for us. It gets it to $1.1 billion, $1.2 billion. I think when you look at that, then it starts to make sense, and I think our sales force is really excited about it. I think it's a little early to tell. There is a capital component, right? That takes time to kind of ramp that up and get through all the committees that you have to, which is kind of why you see the ramp from $2 million to $4 million this year, then $15 million at the midpoint next year. As we work through that process, we'll start to get more kind of momentum in that. Our sales force was really excited about it. It's something that they really wanted, so we're happy we were able to do that for them. What does the M&A pipeline look like? I think it's been pretty active the last couple of years. There's just a lot of things out there. I think the nice thing about us is that we don't have to do anything if we don't want to. I think if you look at the acquisitions that we've done over the last few years, it gives you kind of a sense of what we're looking for, right? We want to get kind of deeper in the areas that we're already playing in as opposed to getting wider. I think we've done a really good job of finding areas that are specific call points that our sales force is already there and getting them the products that they really want. I think you'll probably see more of that. It is a very active market. There are also a lot of bad assets out there, so you've got to be careful. We're not in a situation where we feel like we have to do something. Great spot to be. You wouldn't want investors interpreting you're at the last year of your CGI, growth is slower, M&A needs to pick up to pad the next CGI? No. We're not thinking about that. We're not doing acquisitions to hide any growth deficiencies at all. Okay. I think we've been very consistent in our acquisitions over the years, but it's definitely not something we have to [audio distortion]. Maybe it's a good transition to talk a little about the LRP. Assuming, even add variances to the guidance that you've provided, you will achieve your three-year plan, I think, probably putting you in a small list of companies, their LRPs. So, you know, that would be a good thing. As you round out the CGI period and kind of reflect and get ready to set another one, what are some of the things that are on your minds as you exit this three-year plan that might be different just from an operating environment perspective or competitive dynamic standpoint as you look forward? It's a great question, and that's the type of questions that we're asking ourselves right now. I think one of the nice things of how the CEO transition happened is that I think the board was very thoughtful in how it kind of all worked. CGI runs, which is our current LRP for those [audio distortion] acronym for that g rowth initiatives. It ends at the end of 2026. Obviously, the CEO transition happens in October. That gives Martha really kind of a year and a quarter to dig in and look at the business. One of the things that we are doing right now is asking those same questions and saying, "Hey, where do we have the right to win? What makes sense in the portfolio? Where do we want to go?" We're spending the next year kind of really just hyper-focused on the portfolio and what we think we can do. Once we understand that, I think we'll have to make a decision on what we do, whether we put another LRP out. I know generally we do pretty good on them. I think people like them. I like them. But a decision hasn't been made one way or the other, and that's, by the way, very consistent. Our LRPs. Take a minute here to plug that we also hit our Foundations for Growth targets, and it looks like we, I'm not going to, knock on wood, l ooks like we will be also hitting our CGI targets, which will be two LRPs in a row that we execute on. I think we're being very thoughtful right now. Hey, can we keep that going, and do we want to put another LRP out? Maybe it's a good segue to dive into some of the operating dynamics specific to 2026. I'm sure this is not an especially novel question, but one that you get a lot is just about the ramp for the rest of the year. Yeah. You're below your full year guidance. I believe the second quarter, you're targeting a number sort of midpoint at the low end of your full year guidance. Maybe just recontextualize for people now. Sure. Q1 and what you were seeing in the business when you gave the guidance in May, I guess. Yeah. How we should think about the rest of the year? I think really what I saw, and I generally believe that our guidance isn't significantly different than how we've guided before. There is a couple of things that are kind of creating a little bit of noise, I want to talk about those because I think once you look at the underlying business, I truly believe it's doing well. The issues that we're having, I think, are addressable and things that we have somewhat visibility to, that we believe kind of come back and help us reach our guidance. If you look at kind of the foundational side of the business, and you strip out the DualCap divestiture and the OEM impact, that business grew at 5.5% on an organic constant currency basis in the first quarter, which is essentially in line with a 6% three-year CAGR. Similarly, if you look at therapeutic, and you adjust for OEM again, which is kind of in both buckets, and then you adjust for the recall that we think we can be done with here by the end of the second quarter and start to see some of that business back, t hat business grew at 12% in the first quarter on an organic constant currency basis, as opposed to the 11% three-year CAGR. When you look at kind of the underlying business outside of those kind of items we've called out, it's actually doing pretty well. As OEM comes back, we think it's going to do at least mid-single digits this quarter, and y ou get the recalls behind you. Obviously, DualCap divestiture, you'll have to adjust for that all year long. We think the business is doing great or just fine and doesn't seem overwhelming to hit our numbers. Just to be clear, the DualCap divestiture is excluded from the 4.5%-6%, or included? It's excluded. Excluded. You have to adjust for it. Yeah. All right. Any other, just the OEM normalization, DualCap's already out, but OEM normalization sounds like the big thing. Yeah. That bridges you through. Exactly. To the balance of the year. Yeah. How about kind of the overall operating environment? I'm sure you get a ton of questions on this. It's really not. The data points are super mixed. Like you have the hospitals generally weak Q1s that said it's all going to be fine. The managed care companies are saying, "Oh, no. It's all going to be fine for us." Most recently, we had Medtronic, obviously a report who said everything's fine. What's your perspective on kind of the operating environment? I would agree with Medtronic, right? We're not seeing anything that would give us pause. The environment seems healthy. Yeah, I don't have anything else other to add than I think, obviously keeping an eye on things, but generally the environment feels good. Okay. Yeah. Maybe this is not an update that you provide, but maybe you sort of give your stance on this, that one of the things that came out in first quarter earnings, and I think subsequently for a lot of companies and in different surveys and other things, that this year did start at a disproportionately sharp step down from the fourth quarter, whether it was weather or seasonality or deductible resets, whatever the dynamics might have been. It does seem like the most recent set of facts investors are generally living with is that things have progressively gotten better throughout 2026. What have you seen in your business? Honestly, it's why I kind of highlighted the growth, excluding kind of those, I don't want to call them one-timers, right? But those issues that we kind of talked about on both foundational and therapeutic was because I think when you peel that back, the business did great. Had it not been for those couple things, I think we would've been just kind of back to our kind of normal selves, and I don't think anybody would've had any questions. Unfortunately, I think, we got caught up in that noise, right? Where, hey, there was other companies that were a little bit slower. Merit was a little bit slower than normal. Once I get out there and kind of start helping people kind of understand the underlying business, and I think they get it. Yeah, I think the business has been doing great. Our sales force is out there and doing what they're good at, hopefully that can continue. Okay. Are there any other areas that you want to call out that you feel like people aren't paying attention to, like the OEM dynamic where it's 50%, or it's in the teens, you're like, "No, guys, it's going to be 5%- 7%." Yeah. Or being like, "Oh, no, they're just sandbagging." Yeah. Like, are there other areas that are seeing a sort of outsized growth or even underrepresented growth right now that you don't know that people are fully digesting? Look, I think it was unfortunate that our OEM business happened to have issues at the same time as everybody else's OEM business, which means we kind of got caught up in kind of everybody thinking we all had the same issue. I think for us, it was very unique to us. Again, we're not a contract manufacturer. I think most of you know that. We sell our OEM customers products that we sell every day to our own customers. It's just products that, it's areas that we don't directly, as long as they don't directly compete with our sales force and/or they're not strategic in nature, t he best way I kind of can explain it is we essentially sell capacity, right? We had made some product line transfers to Tijuana, customers stocked up on inventories, some customers got acquired, so then they had inventory policy changes. Or people started looking at their working capital and saying, "Hey, I could probably use a little bit less inventory." It'd just take a little bit longer for them to burn through that inventory that they had. Again, heading into the first quarter and into the second quarter, I've been pretty vocal that the orders are back. We have good visibility. We feel pretty comfortable that we can hit at least that mid-single digit. And. Growth in the second quarter. How do we put together the dynamic of destocking in some of those businesses who would seem like you'd only do that if you had an air pocket of demand on the other side? How do we square that with the commentary around the stability of the end market? It's a good question, and I'm not sure that I have a good answer for you. Other than I think, generally speaking, people will look at their working capital and see, they'll forget, "Hey, what happened under COVID," right? Right. Like, "Hey, I maybe should have had more inventory," or there was supply chain issues after COVID, where people just were not maybe stocked up on inventory. I think over time, as you get more comfortable with the supply chain, you say, "Well, maybe I don't have to hold that much," right? I think those are all things that kind of ebb and flow, which is why our inventory, o r sometimes, the customers just say, "Hey, you know what? I think I can go get the product a little bit cheaper over here." Inevitably, what happens is we never really lose a customer at Merit. What happens is they go and they try that other product, and they usually boomerang back. That's why our business is a little bit choppy. Again, I've been pretty straightforward about that. But consistently, I think if you look at it over time, we're going to be in that 5% to mid to high single digits. Right. I know like many of your peers in other companies we follow, there's a heavy focus on the U.S., but you do have a pretty strong business internationally. Yep. Maybe just sort of talk to what you're seeing in markets outside the U.S. Obviously, China always has its own set of specific criteria. Yeah. Operating factors like VBP and otherwise. What are you seeing OUS, and how does that factor into your kind of growth algorithm? Yeah. Again, I think when we look at our international markets, we think they're doing just fine. I think if you look at the European markets, we delivered growth there. Maybe, it was kind of right in line with our guidance. You look at China, that's essentially been a headwind for us the last few years, with the accretive revenue. Here, it's actually contributing, not much, but it's at least positive. We hope over time, and that we're kind of on the path to kind of delivering growth out of there. I think it's too early to tell, right? I'd kind of like to get this year behind me, and specifically in China, and see kind of how that market is doing, but i t's trending in the right direction, right? It's not holding us back. Okay. Like it did the last few years. As part of your next round of whether you do an LRP or strategic plan that Martha really owns, how are you thinking about, if everyone wants to talk about acquisitions, but there's the other side of it, too, either portfolio pruning or market exits [audio distortion], d oes any of the markets outside the U.S. rise to the level of discussion? Look, I think it's maybe the natural progression for us, right? I mean, I think we were very poor at product life cycle management, quite frankly. It's something we started to pick up under Foundations for Growth. You guys saw us divest of two PAC businesses, one in our European market and the other one in Australia. This year, you saw us divest of DualCap. I mean, I think it's just kind of a, and there was a bunch of SKU rationalization that happened, too, or more like SKU consolidation that's happened over the years, a nd so, I think it's the natural thing to kind of look at. You know, it's expensive to be in a lot of countries, and there's a lot of regulatory requirements and statutory things that you have to do. And so, we'll do like we've done every other year, right? When we're launching LRPs, say, "Hey, let's look at the markets that we're in. Do they make sense financially? Do we think we can get the growth, or should we be investing dollars in other areas?" Same with the portfolios. We'll look at the portfolios. You also just heard me talk about our therapeutic side of things. We've essentially done acquisitions in just about every single one of them, and we think we've got the product. [audio distortion] Is that something we want to divest? But I think things will pop, [audio distortion] you know, natural thing to happen. But I'm not, you know, [audio distortion] size or things like that, I don't know yet. Okay. That's all the work that we're doing right now, but I consider it more product life cycle management than I do pruning. Great. Let's maybe turn to the P&L. I mean, this is sort of a very, a lot of moving parts in this year's earnings outlook, but you are stepping over and absorbing a lot of headwinds while still growing earnings this year. I think you have tariffs, you have View Point convert dilution, but you're still going to grow earnings slightly faster than what you're planning to grow revenues, take midpoint to midpoint, I think. What are some of the puts and takes in the P&L for this year? Yeah. I'll take the easy one first. Obviously, the convert dilution is probably not going to happen, right? Just given where the stock price is. Look, I think tariffs is the tricky one. I think everybody, at least, I felt like was probably prepared to book some sort of receivable based on the tariff refunds. Obviously, over the last few days, the government, DOJ, has decided that they're going to challenge what people can get. I will say that we have started to get some reimbursements, not a material amount, but some. I think that'll be the one thing that we'll look at, and those are obviously the historical tariffs that we paid, right? Do we get a credit for that or not? That would be a one-time benefit. There's the tariffs that are ongoing this year. Obviously, we think those will start to get better than what we initially guided to. How much better? I think we'll adjust everything after our second quarter numbers. As we finalize the quarter, we'll take a deep dive at the tariffs and what makes sense adjusting. I think we have a pretty good game plan to overcome the things that are happening. Luckily, we haven't seen any significant input cost increases. We're seeing fuel surcharges. We're pretty used to those. I kind of feel like those happen every year. Yeah, we're keeping an eye on things, and I think our guidance is not a significant jump from our operating margin, right, from last year. I think we tried to be realistic. Our guidance is usually set to be realistic and achievable. We'll check it out at the end of the second quarter and see where we're at and adjust it if necessary. Yeah. Sometimes, I feel like when companies experience these headwinds, everyone says, "Oh, they're all going to go away next year." Yeah. You're going to have this giant outsized earnings growth year. It never seems to. No. There's always other stuff that comes into the mix. Yeah. Whether it's capitalized variances or flow-through timing of inventory or cost increases. How are you framing normalized EPS growth with these headwinds, or do you not want people doing this math? If it weren't for the $0.12 of headwinds, earnings would have grown this amount, it should just grow low teens next year. Yeah. Honestly, I think it's, you know, obviously, that's why we set up the LRPs. I think that hopefully gives people some visibility. Obviously, we don't call the EPS out, but we do call out operating margin. That hopefully gives you guys a sense of where we think we'll end up, at least for this year. We'll decide what we do go forward basis. Yeah, no. I think, look, there's always something every year that I feel you've got to overcome. That's just the nature of the business. That's what the executive team gets paid to do is, whatever challenge comes our way, we've got to figure out how we're going to make the commitments that we made. I think that also helps from a guidance perspective. People sometimes want to call me a sandbagger. I'll take it all day because I know what the alternative is. I lived it, and don't want to go back to that. I think what we try and do is set realistic and achievable guidance. We're not going to try and wow you with some guidance that we think is unrealistic. That's not our nature. That, I think, helps, too. Nothing's changed from that perspective. I was trying to sort of obviously, as always do, read through Martha's comments. Yeah. [audio distortion] around kind of forward margin trajectory. If you look at your, I don't know, call it low to mid-50s gross margin business, like low 20s operating margin is pretty good. Yeah. If you look across the peer set, you don't see companies do purely better than that at those types of gross margins. It was kind of like the forward trajectory of margins was probably a little more balanced, and there's sort of a trade-off discussion to have between margin expansion or reinvestment. I don't think so, right? We think we can continue to drive profitability and continue to expand our operating margin. I will be very transparent, don't expect what we've done the last five years, right? We did almost 700, 800 basis point improvement. That's just not doable. But we do think that we can find leverage in the business. We think we can continue to expand gross margins, a little bit slower, right? Hopefully, we're going to go through our strategic planning, and hopefully we'll give you guys some good color on what we think we can hit and get you guys comfortable with that. But I think generally speaking, there's nobody at Merit who doesn't think we can expand our operating margin. Maybe just in the brief time we have left, maybe I'll turn it back to you just to closing remarks. We saw the start to the year, stock's been volatile. What do you want people to walk away from this presentation, those on the webcast, and also from your one-on-one meetings? How do you want people to leave this conference as probably your last public appearance before Q2? Yeah. No, look, I think we're feeling pretty confident. I think maybe the one thing we haven't really discussed is kind of the CEO change, right? With Martha coming on. I feel like she's a great cultural fit. I think she's doing all the right things. There hasn't been any significant changes in the executive team. Actually, none really, other than a couple people that we've brought on for some holes that we wanted to fill. Yeah, I think we're doing all the right things this year, I think, as we kind of look forward to the next few years. My confidence level is pretty positive, and I think it seems like a very challenging environment out there, but t he business continues to do well, so we'll see how it all shakes out. Excellent. Well, thank you. Appreciate you making the time. Yeah. Well, thank you for having us. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah. I look forward to the next update. Great. Thank you.