HENRY SCHEIN INC — Call Transcript 2026

Hello, I'm John Stansel. I'm a member of the Healthcare Services team here at JPMorgan. I've been joined by a large cohort of the Henry Schein management team, including CEO Stan Bergman, CFO Ron South, Andrea Albertini, the CEO of the Global Distribution and Technology Group, and Tom Popeck, the CEO of the Global Products Group. So we're going to start with a bit of a presentation from the guys, and then we will go into a Q&A afterwards. Very good. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. We must have seen practically everyone at this conference in one-on-one. So those that are here, thank you for coming. I'm going to go through this, John, if that's OK, very quickly, so that there's more time for Q&A, because this is going to be posted on the website. So we're very pleased that yesterday morning we announced Fred Lowery as the Henry Schein's new CEO effective March 2 of this year. In July, I announced my plans to retire, and the plan contemplated a recruiting process, a succession recruiting process, a review of internal candidates and external candidates by our Nominating and Governance Committee. The process actually went quite well. There was tremendous interest from external candidates, and of course, we had internal candidates. Although we had planned to announce the new candidate by the new successor, the candidate, by the end of this year, the end of last year, we delayed it a couple of weeks just to make sure that there was an orderly transition with both companies. Fred Lowery is a unique individual and really has the domain expertise to lead Henry Schein to the next level. He comes out of Thermo Fisher, which is a company that has a distribution business. Fisher Scientific is the origins of that business. That model is almost identical to the Henry Schein model: consolidated U.S. distribution, went global, added OEM owned brand products, vertically integrated and specialty products, added value, added services, and balanced these own brands with continuing to be a key provider or distributor of products that are national brands. Fred has been with Fisher for two decades, has great experience in manufacturing, in distribution, in managing brands, and at the same time worked closely on creating value, because when you make a lot of acquisitions, you want to figure out the optimal way of integrating those acquisitions. You want to find the optimal way to advance gross profit. And Fred had done a lot of that work, a huge amount of that work in his prior roles. He will add significantly to the strategy to advance our BOLD+1 strategy and the value creation initiatives. I don't think we could have found a better candidate with that kind of experience. But what I think is really very important is that Fred's values are identical to Henry Schein's: a system, a philosophy, if you will, where people are number one, and where people, it's understood that people drive the business, because essentially what we sell is available from many others. The reason we're number one or number two in each of the markets that we serve is because of our values. And those values over time drive the culture, and the culture has to adapt to the marketplace needs at the time. This is precisely the kind of work that Fred has been involved with. Our executive management team has met Fred in the last month or so. Very, very excited. The team are highly motivated. The business is doing well. There's great momentum, as we discussed in our third quarter call. The cyber incident is behind us. We're not defending our market share anymore. We're actually growing our market share in a very aggressive way. The two leaders of our business units, Andrea, who leads our distribution business, and our tech business, our technology business, primarily the joint venture of Henry Schein One, and Tom, who leads our owned brand's product offering, are very excited with where the business is going together with the rest of the senior management, and in fact, the whole company and the momentum is great, so I'm not going to read what's on the screen, but you'll see you can read it later on the website that this is an ideal fit. Fred is an ideal fit. It's like a hand and a glove for Henry Schein, and the team are very, very excited to be working with Fred. The Henry Schein overview, again, this is available on the website, where the number one provider of products and related services to office-based practitioners, whatever these practitioners need, dental, medical, we have. The business is growing nicely. Yes, we had a bit of a challenge with our cyber incident, but things are moving along very, very nicely. We're market leader. We're a huge customer base, over a million customers, excellent relationships with our larger customers, diversified portfolio, and these integrated solutions is what's driving the business. The 25 highlights are here. The market, dental market, is stable. Units are pretty stable, probably in the U.S. leaning to the positive. There's some pricing pressure in the context of products moving. When you say pressure, the average ASP of some products are going down. This is a movement from national brands to corporate brands. But overall, the market is doing well on the dental side, the medical side, and Henry Schein is gaining market share. The sales in all of our businesses have accelerated in the last few quarters. The specialty technology businesses are doing well. And the growth in the distribution from a market share point of view globally is also growing. The value creation activity is going well. We announced over $200 million of value creation, primarily in the areas of driving efficiency, as I noted earlier on, and gross margin enhancement. We have a very good balance sheet. We turn our profits into cash. We deploy our cash in some acquisitions, but also buying back stock. And our strategic plan of BOLD+1, with a key component of driving high growth, high margin businesses and our own brands, doing well, where we have a goal of 60% of our operating income coming from these high growth, high margin, and owned brand products. We're well on the way towards that goal for 2027. The long-term growth strategy is on the screen. I just don't want to spend too much time on this. It's all clear. It's here. I'd rather handle a Q&A. I think that's a better use of our time, John. The financial overview, Ron, if you just want to give it to the very top highlights, that'd be very helpful. Yeah. You can see the trends here. If you go back to 2017, you can see the positive trend lines we had in operating income. We get to 2020. I think we all know what happened in 2020. You see the reduction. In 2020, we had EPS in the second quarter of 2020; we had EPS of zero. It was an absolute break-even quarter for us, so you see that the decline in 2020, and then we got quite the benefit from the demand for PPE, the demand for COVID test kits. You look at a year like 2022 when we had $1.75 billion combined revenues in PPE and COVID test kits. Those revenues are expected to be in 2025 something much more closer to, say, $500 million. So you see the benefit we got from that, the pullback a little bit. We had some disruption in 2023, as Stanley mentioned, from the cyber attack. The numbers you see on the screen are actually normalized to show what we believe that our earnings would have been without the cyber attack, and then you see the growth. We returned to growth in 2024, and we expect to continue to, as we communicated with our most recent guidance, that in 2025 we will continue to see that growth, so we kind of returned to the growth. One thing I do want to point out, you see the operating income CAGR of 3.6% versus the EPS CAGR of 6.2%, indicative of some slightly more aggressive share repurchase activity that we've done in the last several years, indicating our confidence in the business as we continue to reinvest and provide, I would say, a more tax-efficient way of getting a return to our shareholders as well. Thanks, Ron. That's fine. Oh, all set. I think, Stan, you've been coming here much longer than I have. Just wanted to start with a bit of a retrospective. Where do you see as we enter 2026? I know you're not providing guidance, so I won't try too much, but talk about how you've seen the dental markets evolve and where you think we're going over the next, call it, 18 months. It's true. I remember coming to the hotel when it was easy to get into the elevator. I would say J.P. Morgan has done a great job at making this the healthcare conference. Where we're heading is, yes, supply chain is important, very important, making sure that customers get the right products at the right time rapidly. The quality is good. Equipment, sales, and service are very important. But at the end of the day, what practitioners are looking for is to operate a more efficient practice so that they can focus on clinical care. And that's what's driving the Henry Schein business. Andrea and Tom can talk more about that. The markets are OK in units. It's stable, leaning positive, maybe a little bit more than positive. I'm quite optimistic about where the consumable business is heading. Equipment, the traditional business is stable, but there's significant opportunity in the digital space. The area of integration of various digital functions is where the real opportunity exists. It starts with the practice management system, goes to electronic medical record, ties in various AI apps, ties in various equipment, digital equipment integrated, and that's the exciting part of dentistry, so yes, all of the consumables and equipment, that's all exciting. There's lots of opportunity, but John, where dentistry is heading, driving efficiency in the practice, enabling better clinical outcomes with the technology that is now being made available and integrating that technology is where the exciting part of dentistry is, and that's what we're focused on. That makes sense. And I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask for a little bit more details about Fred to get to know him. And I think the feedback on our end has been, it makes sense, someone from Thermo coming over kind of a distribution owned brand business. Can you talk about, as you went through the hiring process and got to know Fred better, anecdotally, where are the areas you see him having a natural overlap, really strong understandings? Are there areas where you think this is going to be kind of his learning curve? What do you think about that as you go through the hiring process and steps that he's taking? Yeah. John, I think the models are very similar, but I'm sure that Thermo does things differently, and it's always good to have a second pair of eyes look at what we're doing. We've got a very enthusiastic board. We've added to our board in the last couple of years. People are bringing a lot of great experience, so I think there's a significant buy-in to BOLD+1. No question, the high growth, high margin businesses are important as we diversify our income stream. Fred, I think, will look at that. He's got tremendous experience in that area, but I think he'll be also of great value in driving efficiency and driving value-added services in our distribution business, so I do think that the combination of the high growth, high margin, and the traditional distribution business benefiting from Fred's experience will be important. But Fred has also led, my understanding, high-powered teams. And we have a very good team. The team is raring to go on advancing our BOLD+1 initiative and working closely with them on that. And of course, yes, there's the value creation opportunity. We bought a lot of businesses. There's technology available. There's certain functions that can be centralized. These are all areas that Fred has had experience in and will complement our team. But it's not as if our team doesn't have also good experience in this area. Andrea and Tom have experience with other companies as well. It's going to be a great team, I think. Of course, then there's all the corporate functions where a lot of great succession has taken place over the last five or six years where people have retired and new people have come in or been promoted from the financial side to the legal side to the supply chain side to. HR? What was that? Human resources? Of course, human resources and the great succession plan and the whole world of computers, of IT, so I think there's a lot he's going to add, and there's a lot of excitement. Of course, it's always helpful when a business is doing well. That's what drives momentum and gets morale up. I think you mentioned the value creation plan. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about the $200 million of net operating profit improvement. I know you haven't given detailed buckets, and I'm sure that's something that everyone's going to be waiting for in a few weeks to hear about. But can you just talk a little bit about the analysis that was performed? Kind of what gave you the confidence to step out with a $200 million number? And kind of when you talked to your consultants, what they were showing you that kind of gave you conviction? Why doesn't Ron give you the math, and the two people responsible for having put the plan together can add a little bit to that? Yeah, certainly, John. I think that in terms of the $200 million, we're really focused on the aggregate number as a management team. Excuse me. So whether we deliver the operating income improvement at the gross profit level or at the operating expense level through savings, we'll be agnostic to that in terms of the focus is really the aggregate number. When we provide guidance at the end of February, we'll talk a little more to what our expectations are and the impact on 2026. 2026 will be a year that we'll have to make certain investments in order to achieve these savings. But I do clearly expect a net benefit in 2026 from these initiatives and with some good momentum coming out of 2026 going into 2027. As we said, we expect the $200 million plus to come over the next few years. But we feel very good about our ability to do this. We have the whole organization behind this. This isn't just a few people working to achieve this. It's the whole organization. I'll defer to both Tom and Andrea. As Stanley said, they've kind of led some of a big piece of these initiatives. So I also want to get them involved in this. Yeah, sure, so I've been leading the G&A project, and my peer here, Andrea, has been leading the gross profit improvement project, and on the G&A side, Henry Schein's been made up of a lot of different acquisitions over the years, and the ability to take these acquisitions and look at the back office functions and start to look enterprise-wide at some of the shared services, start to maximize those shared services, and also look to offshore some of those shared services to reduce costs, as well as looking across the enterprise and looking to maximize indirect procurement, so things like travel, facilities, all the things that don't go into the products, but across all these different acquisitions, we're independently doing a lot of their own things, so doing a good bottoms-up approach, which we did. We built this from the bottoms up. All of our teams were involved, came up with our projections, and we're off and running. So, Andrea. Yeah. The other bucket is the GP improvement value creation project. We are looking at how we do pricing. We are looking at our assortment. We are looking at how we can leverage the right price to increase share of wallet or to push our own brands where appropriate. It's not a new initiative. To be fair, we were working on this pricing project before, but with this value creation initiative and with the support of an external consultant, we scaled up the level of tools, technology applied to the analysis, a lot of analytical skills that we brought into the organization to be able really to take strong and informative decisions on our pricing. And we already executed the first wave of initiative in 2025. And we have a program to continue during 2026 and 2027. These initiatives are part of the evaluation that brought us to the $200 million plus. Great and maybe just a quick clarification for Ron. So when you say net benefit in 2026, this is not a run rate. This is in the totality of the year, there should be some uplift in 2026. Is that the right way to think about it? Yeah. I would expect that while we will have to make some investment in 2026, that we will achieve some savings in 2026 that will exceed that investment, so we'll get some net benefit out of that. When we talk about the $200 million, it's going to take us over a period of multiple years to do that. It's not going to be a linear benefit, right? I think that we're trying to position ourselves that we really can ramp up some benefits of this as we get into the back half of 2026 and into 2027. And then just maybe for Andrea, on the gross profit side, how much of this is tied to things that are within your own control, just on pricing? Or if we just think about kind of the current macro backdrop for dental, is that sufficient? Or do you need an improvement in the overall backdrop to kind of hit your targets? No. Of course, we are not immune from what is going on around us, but the project is based on what we can control and how we price more smartly, how we use data to really drive pricing and portfolio positioning based on customer behaviors, all these kinds of sophistication, and this is in our control. Okay. Then just as we think about just the general dental market trends, I think we kind of heard volume skewing somewhat positively with some maybe top pricing ASP pressures as kind of the framing. When I think about the balance of 2025, really a tale of two halves, especially on dental consumables, where first half was pretty muted on a revenue line, and then you kind of picked up into kind of, call it high, low single digits, if that's a thing, to maybe mid-single digits. How do I think about is that you can grow, call it mid-slow, 3-4% in a slightly positive volume backdrop with potentially some ASP pressure. Is that kind of the right way to think about how that translates, given that you, I think, as you said, you're gaining share? I mean, I can elaborate on what we are doing that gives us the confidence to, let's say, continue to grow. I mean, we already commented. The dental market is overall slightly positive, let's say, and of course, there are exceptions in the specialty that are growing faster, or there are segments of the market that are growing faster, like DSOs, but overall, slightly positive. Where we get the growth is in gaining share, and we are gaining share. We started after the cyber incident. I hate to speak about the cyber incident because it's behind us, but we have to admit that for roughly 18 months, our focus was mainly on recovering and defending our position. Q2 last year, we started again really aggressively to go out and execute on our strategy more than recovering, and the results are clear. I mean, we announced it in Q3, strong momentum on sales. We gained market share. Going into Q4, this momentum continued, and we believe we are in a very good moment where we are gaining market share, and this is a result of our commercial plans, our broad portfolio of products and solutions. We have the broadest portfolio in the industry, especially in the dental segment, with our own corporate brands, with our own business solutions, and we are investing also in our sales force. We have more people on the field. We have more people on the phone. We are investing in digital channel, so when you combine the portfolio with our omnichannel strategy, we are gaining market share, and we see the results. Is there a particular area? I think you mentioned DSOs being kind of a positive point. Is that where you see kind of the above-trend growth coming from? Or is it something particular else that you'd highlight? Or is it broad-based? I mean, if we look at the different segments in the market, independent practice, mid-market, or mid-DSOs and big DSOs, we believe the growth is more on the mid-market/big DSOs, yes. They're growing a little bit faster. Thinking about that, has there been a change in dentists' purchasing habits? I think back to 2024, and there was a whole topic of trade down and move to national private label for national brands. Is that a sustained trend? Is that a moment in time? How do you see kind of purchasing habits changing or not changing? If we talk about dentists and probably customers in general, they are more ROI-focused. So they look at investment. If we talk about equipment, they look at investment that brings efficiency or productivity. And this is why we see more investment in digital equipment, because it allows them to automate processes or to perform in a more efficient way complex procedures. If we talk about merchandise, similarly, I mean, we don't talk about ROI, but we talk about being cautious on price-quality ratio. And where there is no innovation, the focus goes to the private brands because they can get the same quality at a lower price. And then we talk about, again, this ASP pressure somewhat. And I know it's like you can't generalize to every single category being similar. But one of the things that we've talked about in the past is this idea of innovation is something that drives ASP inflation and is a big part of kind of maybe a return to growth. I think about things like Curaden, for example, which you guys have worked a lot with vVARDIS on. Do you see a pipeline where we maybe go from kind of a, I'll call it more tepid and innovation backdrop to kind of something where there is a path for more new products to come to market? We would love to have more and more innovation. And you mentioned that Curaden is a very good example. End of last year, we announced that we are the exclusive distribution partner for Curaden in the U.S. and the U.K. And when you have innovation, you don't have the same price pressure. And I mean, we always, in the conversation with our manufacturing partner, we encourage them to come out with innovation because this is where the market doesn't get commoditized, and we can get pricing advantages. I think there's always a question, and this is kind of maybe both a DSO and equipment question, but the benefit of potentially lower interest rates. I think this has been kind of on people's minds for a bit now. Do you see some level of upward performance tied to lower interest rates in the near term, medium term? I mean, I can't rely on and jump in, but I don't believe it's huge. But yes, of course, when you do an investment and you borrow capital, interest rates have an impact. But interest rates have an impact also on DSOs buying practices. So yes, there is a correlation, not huge, because when customers see an ROI, they will invest, and they continue to invest in equipment. Yeah. And John, just to add to that, I think that I always think of the interest rates and how they impact us. There's kind of a short-term versus long-term impact. The short-term impact of lower interest rates, you can see an immediate bump in demand for equipment. I don't think it's completely linear. I do think dentists are able to kind of work around some of the higher interest rates when they are present in the economy. But we do see. I think it would be fair to say you would expect a small bump in equipment sales with a decline in interest rates. In the long term, Andrea mentioned DSOs who acquire practices, but also a lot of DSOs will build out de novo practices. At lower interest rates, just the math in terms of the ROI and what the hurdle rate is on building out those practices gets easier if you have lower interest rates, lower cost of capital. That's important to us because that expands the supply of dentistry services. That larger supply of dentistry services gives us more opportunity to sell more products too. Great. And I want to bring Tom in here, what I was hammering on, Andrea, the entire time. Implants. A little bit of some moving parts in the third quarter. I think you had kind of a bolus of growth in your value book, which kind of made a bit of a, I think, mixed shift, if I remember correctly. Can you just talk us through how you're seeing the different buckets of implants performing right now and kind of where your customer base is interested in spending more or less? Yeah. I think it's dependent on the geography. In the U.S., there's been a big move over the years to go more towards the value. And we're positioned well with our acquisition we did two years ago with our S.I.N. implants. And in other areas like parts of Germany, parts of Europe like Germany, South America, Brazil, those markets are growing faster. Germany, in particular, is more of a premium brand. So it's all specific on which country, which area, and which product category we're in, so. Thinking about you've kind of pivoted your implant book over the last, I'll call it, three years, right? The S.I.N. acquisition, your launch of the new products, kind of more upstream. Do you feel that there are any kind of, not to use a lack of a better word, a hole in your implant book? No. I think our implant portfolio is very well positioned across the different brands we have. I think the opportunity for us is to unify them a little bit more and come to market more as one company versus four or five independent companies, and that's part of our strategic plan. It's what we've been working on and looking forward to us getting that in place over the next year or two. Great. Maybe to move to medical quickly. Some moving parts right now, I would imagine, between kind of, I would say, cough, cold, and flu ran a little bit soft in the fourth quarter, has picked up in the last two weeks. I can anecdotally say that I was really sick two weeks ago. Thank you. Yeah. But then the other question is your business does distribute vaccines as well. And so how do we think about kind of the seasonality of that business? Again, I know you're not providing updated guidance, but just thinking about kind of the things that matter as we think about kind of the tail end of the year. Let me say that the things that matter, in our opinion, is the overall trend that continues to see a shift of activities performed in alternative care settings instead of urgent care settings, and this trend is much more important than the seasonality. Take the ICs. More and more procedures are shifting from inpatient to outpatients, and this is a big engine of growth, and even if you take the IDNs and the independent physicians, yes, they can have some seasonality, but there are more and more activities done on chronic health or chronic diseases and preventive health, so overall, I would say that, yes, you can have inside the quarter some seasonality because of the cold and the flu season, but we remain bullish on our idea that the market for us is growing mid-single digit in these segments. Okay. And maybe quickly touch on technology because I want to keep us kind of cognizant of time here. Incremental margins have been incredibly strong. I would imagine some of that is your SaaS transition that has been going on. How much of what we've seen kind of from the operating profit line is conversion versus addition, right? Like adding new platforms, new people, versus just flipping people over to kind of more like asset-weighted model? First of all, SaaS for us is still. We are still at the beginning of the journey. We have roughly 10% of our customer base on the cloud and on subscription models. So we have a huge opportunity in front of us. Normally, the SaaS customers are new customers. Of course, there is a component of conversion, but normally are new customers. Am I right to think that the DSOs and kind of your multi-sites are much more interested in kind of your cloud offering than? Yeah, absolutely. We are working with a couple of big DSOs on a cloud project. Not all. Some are on the on-prem, but yeah, they are interested. Of course, they understand the value of having a cloud solution. And this is an area of focus, of course. Of course. And then maybe just generally, with the DSOs, competitive intensity, bids, RFP cycle, is there anything changing with what they're looking for as you maybe discuss with them renew contracts? I'm not asking for contract updates, but just generally, the things that they're interested in adding or having, has that changed or evolved over time? Or is it kind of the same competitive intensity that you've seen over the past few years? I mean, they always negotiate that, for sure. They are good in this. But no, we see, especially the good DSOs, they are more and more interested to find solutions or opportunities to increase their revenue. I mean, when we started to present the AI solution, there were a lot of interest from DSOs, and there are. There is a lot of interest from DSOs because of the opportunity to increase the customer experience, but also increase the efficiency of their practices. A product like Curaden is a product that found a lot of interest on the DSOs. So when we have innovation, we have solutions, and this is an area where, yeah, we see more and more conversation with the DSOs. On the technology side, when I think about additive offerings, I think I was at the New York meetings, and you were demonstrating some kind of new tools that have been added. What more do you think? Do you have a full suite at this point? Are there new things that you're looking to add to your technology offering? What is the other holes there? This is an area we love, I love, and we accelerate the pace of innovation in our technology company, and there is much more that will come. The area of, first of all, we focus on what we call one platform, so more and more integrated solutions that help the workflow in the clinic, both on the clinical side and on the management side. The main area of focus is revenue cycle management. That is a huge topic for our customers. The clinical workflow with the AI, efficiency of the practitioner with a solution like Scribe. We announced at the New York meeting our partnership with Amazon Web Services to develop some AI solutions that are voice-based, so we will have a lot of new solutions coming also this year. And maybe this is a perfect time to pivot to Ron and think about build versus buy. And you guys have had a bit of a bias towards share repurchase over the last couple of quarters. How are you thinking about capital deployment right now and kind of the attractiveness of either talking M&A, maybe some NCI buy-downs that you've done in the past versus going out and inorganically adding something to one of your offerings? Yeah. In terms of M&A, there's always something in the pipeline that we're evaluating where our focus has been more in the high-growth, high-margin areas of the business. Tom mentioned a couple of the implant acquisitions we've done within the last several years, but we've also been investing more on the home solution side in medical. We do find that to be an area of accelerated growth versus, say, core medical, and it's also an area of our business that gets better margins than our core medical, and so we find that to be a very attractive area for M&A investment for us, and it's not restricted just to that. We are looking at, on the technology side, if we see an opportunity to buy something. We just recently kind of folded in an imaging system process that was somebody who we had a very close relationship with, but now we've kind of captured that. And it's an integral part of the offering. And along the way, we just have to make that decision. In some cases, the solution is not available out there. It's something we may have to build ourselves on the technology side. And then there's other areas where if we feel like we can strengthen ourselves in a certain geography or by getting access to a product like we've done in some of Tom's areas to broaden a product portfolio like we've done with our implant business, that's really going to be the focus. Outside of that, we still think that we've been pretty aggressive in terms of what we've done with share repurchases. We think it's very accretive for us right now. We think it does provide a good return to our shareholders. And as long as we can generate the positive cash flow that we've been able to do, we'll continue to be aggressive there as well. Great. And then maybe just one last one before I have my traditional ending question. You've hired from other dental distributors recently, kind of added sales force. You've also launched your e-commerce platform. So I think that there are two factors there: adding headcount, improving efficiency via the e-commerce platform. Entering '26, thinking about your sales force, is it where you need it to be? Is it something that you can just scale pretty easily because you have all these new tools? How do we think about the dental sales force and how that translates to incremental growth going forward? So we will continue to add sales force as we have done in 2025 in a very focused way based on territories where we may benefit from more coverage or based on quality of people. But you're right. In 2025, we were able to attract a lot of salespeople from competition. We added salespeople on the field. We added salespeople on the phone, and we invested in our digital platform. So all this is part of our strategy, and all this will support our growth. I'm not talking about percentage because I don't believe we provided guidance yet, but all this is what makes us positive for our growth. Our team generally ends all of these firesides with the same question, which is, what do you think investors are going to appreciate about Henry Schein in about 12 months when you're sitting here again that they don't appreciate right now? It's on the screen. The investment merits? Are we waiting for that question? Look, we have a clear strategy. We're not going to go through it now. BOLD+1 is very clear. We're making progress in each of those areas. When we say we're going to do something, we do it. We have a pretty good track record. Cyber, in between, of course, distracted us a bit. The dental market is a good market. It's a steady market. It's growing. We need some more dentists in the developed world. We're helping grow dental school admissions, graduations, but if we can drive efficiency, there will be more outcome. The platform is endless in dental and in medical. There's so much we can add. We want more share of our customers' wallets. The L in the BOLD+1, the leveraging, and we have a pretty experienced management team, which I went through. The team is very, very enthusiastic. I can tell you that. So, John, thank you for. No, thank you. Hosting us. It's been great to be part of this journey you've been on. Thank you all for coming. We're just exactly at time.

Speaker 3: Hello, I'm John Stansel. I'm a member of the Healthcare Services team here at JPMorgan. I've been joined by a large cohort of the Henry Schein management team, including CEO Stan Bergman, CFO Ron South, Andrea Albertini, the CEO of the Global Distribution and Technology Group, and Tom Popeck, the CEO of the Global Products Group. So we're going to start with a bit of a presentation from the guys, and then we will go into a Q&A afterwards. Hello, I'm John Stansel. hello i'm john stansel I'm a member of the Healthcare Services team here at JP Morgan. i'm a member of the healthcare services team here at jp morgan I've been joined by a large cohort of the Henry Schein management team, including CEO Stan Bergman, CFO Ron South, Andrea Albertini, the CEO of the Global Distribution and Technology Group, and Tom Popeck, the CEO of the Global Products Group. i've been joined by a large cohort of the henry schein management team including ceo stan bergman cfo ron south andrea albertini the ceo of the global distribution and technology group and tom popeck the ceo of the global products group So we're going to start with a bit of a presentation from the guys, and then we will go into a Q&A afterwards. so we're going to start with a bit of a presentation from the guys and then we will go into a q&a afterwards

Speaker 4: Very good. Thank you, John. Very good. very good Thank you, John. thank you john

Speaker 5: Thank you, John. We must have seen practically everyone at this conference in one-on-one. So those that are here, thank you for coming. I'm going to go through this, John, if that's OK, very quickly, so that there's more time for Q&A, because this is going to be posted on the website. So we're very pleased that yesterday morning we announced Fred Lowery as the Henry Schein's new CEO effective March 2 of this year. In July, I announced my plans to retire, and the plan contemplated a recruiting process, a succession recruiting process, a review of internal candidates and external candidates by our Nominating and Governance Committee. The process actually went quite well. There was tremendous interest from external candidates, and of course, we had internal candidates. Thank you, John. thank you john We must have seen practically everyone at this conference in one-on-one. we must have seen practically everyone at this conference in one-on-one So those that are here, thank you for coming. so those that are here thank you for coming I'm going to go through this, John, if that's OK, very quickly, so that there's more time for Q&A, because this is going to be posted on the website. i'm going to go through this john if that's ok very quickly so that there's more time for q&a because this is going to be posted on the website So we're very pleased that yesterday morning we announced Fred Lowery as the Henry Schein's new CEO effective March 2 of this year. so we're very pleased that yesterday morning we announced fred lowery as the henry schein's new ceo effective march 2 of this year In July, I announced my plans to retire, and the plan contemplated a recruiting process, a succession recruiting process, a review of internal candidates and external candidates by our Nominating and Governance Committee. in july i announced my plans to retire and the plan contemplated a recruiting process a succession recruiting process a review of internal candidates and external candidates by our nominating and governance committee The process actually went quite well. the process actually went quite well There was tremendous interest from external candidates, and of course, we had internal candidates. there was tremendous interest from external candidates and of course we had internal candidates Although we had planned to announce the new candidate by the new successor, the candidate, by the end of this year, the end of last year, we delayed it a couple of weeks just to make sure that there was an orderly transition with both companies. Fred Lowery is a unique individual and really has the domain expertise to lead Henry Schein to the next level. He comes out of Thermo Fisher, which is a company that has a distribution business. Fisher Scientific is the origins of that business. That model is almost identical to the Henry Schein model: consolidated U.S. distribution, went global, added OEM owned brand products, vertically integrated and specialty products, added value, added services, and balanced these own brands with continuing to be a key provider or distributor of products that are national brands. Although we had planned to announce the new candidate by the new successor, the candidate, by the end of this year, the end of last year, we delayed it a couple of weeks just to make sure that there was an orderly transition with both companies. although we had planned to announce the new candidate by the new successor the candidate by the end of this year the end of last year we delayed it a couple of weeks just to make sure that there was an orderly transition with both companies Fred Lowery is a unique individual and really has the domain expertise to lead Henry Schein to the next level. fred lowery is a unique individual and really has the domain expertise to lead henry schein to the next level He comes out of Thermo Fisher, which is a company that has a distribution business. he comes out of thermo fisher which is a company that has a distribution business Fisher Scientific is the origins of that business. fisher scientific is the origins of that business That model is almost identical to the Henry Schein model: consolidated U.S. distribution, went global, added OEM owned brand products, vertically integrated and specialty products, added value, added services, and balanced these own brands with continuing to be a key provider or distributor of products that are national brands. that model is almost identical to the henry schein model consolidated u.s distribution went global added oem owned brand products vertically integrated and specialty products added value added services and balanced these own brands with continuing to be a key provider or distributor of products that are national brands Fred has been with Fisher for two decades, has great experience in manufacturing, in distribution, in managing brands, and at the same time worked closely on creating value, because when you make a lot of acquisitions, you want to figure out the optimal way of integrating those acquisitions. You want to find the optimal way to advance gross profit. And Fred had done a lot of that work, a huge amount of that work in his prior roles. He will add significantly to the strategy to advance our BOLD+1 strategy and the value creation initiatives. I don't think we could have found a better candidate with that kind of experience. Fred has been with Fisher for two decades, has great experience in manufacturing, in distribution, in managing brands, and at the same time worked closely on creating value, because when you make a lot of acquisitions, you want to figure out the optimal way of integrating those acquisitions. fred has been with fisher for two decades has great experience in manufacturing in distribution in managing brands and at the same time worked closely on creating value because when you make a lot of acquisitions you want to figure out the optimal way of integrating those acquisitions You want to find the optimal way to advance gross profit. you want to find the optimal way to advance gross profit And Fred had done a lot of that work, a huge amount of that work in his prior roles. and fred had done a lot of that work a huge amount of that work in his prior roles He will add significantly to the strategy to advance our BOLD+1 strategy and the value creation initiatives. he will add significantly to the strategy to advance our bold+1 strategy and the value creation initiatives I don't think we could have found a better candidate with that kind of experience. i don't think we could have found a better candidate with that kind of experience But what I think is really very important is that Fred's values are identical to Henry Schein's: a system, a philosophy, if you will, where people are number one, and where people, it's understood that people drive the business, because essentially what we sell is available from many others. The reason we're number one or number two in each of the markets that we serve is because of our values. And those values over time drive the culture, and the culture has to adapt to the marketplace needs at the time. This is precisely the kind of work that Fred has been involved with. Our executive management team has met Fred in the last month or so. Very, very excited. The team are highly motivated. The business is doing well. There's great momentum, as we discussed in our third quarter call. The cyber incident is behind us. But what I think is really very important is that Fred's values are identical to Henry Schein's: a system, a philosophy, if you will, where people are number one, and where people, it's understood that people drive the business, because essentially what we sell is available from many others. but what i think is really very important is that fred's values are identical to henry schein's a system a philosophy if you will where people are number one and where people it's understood that people drive the business because essentially what we sell is available from many others The reason we're number one or number two in each of the markets that we serve is because of our values. the reason we're number one or number two in each of the markets that we serve is because of our values And those values over time drive the culture, and the culture has to adapt to the marketplace needs at the time. and those values over time drive the culture and the culture has to adapt to the marketplace needs at the time This is precisely the kind of work that Fred has been involved with. this is precisely the kind of work that fred has been involved with Our executive management team has met Fred in the last month or so. our executive management team has met fred in the last month or so Very, very excited. very very excited The team are highly motivated. the team are highly motivated The business is doing well. the business is doing well There's great momentum, as we discussed in our third quarter call. there's great momentum as we discussed in our third quarter call The cyber incident is behind us. the cyber incident is behind us We're not defending our market share anymore. We're actually growing our market share in a very aggressive way. The two leaders of our business units, Andrea, who leads our distribution business, and our tech business, our technology business, primarily the joint venture of Henry Schein One, and Tom, who leads our owned brand's product offering, are very excited with where the business is going together with the rest of the senior management, and in fact, the whole company and the momentum is great, so I'm not going to read what's on the screen, but you'll see you can read it later on the website that this is an ideal fit. Fred is an ideal fit. It's like a hand and a glove for Henry Schein, and the team are very, very excited to be working with Fred. We're not defending our market share anymore. we're not defending our market share anymore We're actually growing our market share in a very aggressive way. we're actually growing our market share in a very aggressive way The two leaders of our business units, Andrea, who leads our distribution business, and our tech business, our technology business, primarily the joint venture of Henry Schein One, and Tom, who leads our owned brand's product offering, are very excited with where the business is going together with the rest of the senior management, and in fact, the whole company and the momentum is great, so I'm not going to read what's on the screen, but you'll see you can read it later on the website that this is an ideal fit. the two leaders of our business units andrea who leads our distribution business and our tech business our technology business primarily the joint venture of henry schein one and tom who leads our owned brand's product offering are very excited with where the business is going together with the rest of the senior management and in fact the whole company and the momentum is great so i'm not going to read what's on the screen but you'll see you can read it later on the website that this is an ideal fit Fred is an ideal fit. fred is an ideal fit It's like a hand and a glove for Henry Schein, and the team are very, very excited to be working with Fred. it's like a hand and a glove for henry schein and the team are very very excited to be working with fred The Henry Schein overview, again, this is available on the website, where the number one provider of products and related services to office-based practitioners, whatever these practitioners need, dental, medical, we have. The business is growing nicely. Yes, we had a bit of a challenge with our cyber incident, but things are moving along very, very nicely. We're market leader. We're a huge customer base, over a million customers, excellent relationships with our larger customers, diversified portfolio, and these integrated solutions is what's driving the business. The 25 highlights are here. The market, dental market, is stable. Units are pretty stable, probably in the U.S. leaning to the positive. There's some pricing pressure in the context of products moving. When you say pressure, the average ASP of some products are going down. This is a movement from national brands to corporate brands. The Henry Schein overview, again, this is available on the website, where the number one provider of products and related services to office-based practitioners, whatever these practitioners need, dental, medical, we have. the henry schein overview again this is available on the website where the number one provider of products and related services to office-based practitioners whatever these practitioners need dental medical we have The business is growing nicely. the business is growing nicely Yes, we had a bit of a challenge with our cyber incident, but things are moving along very, very nicely. yes we had a bit of a challenge with our cyber incident but things are moving along very very nicely We're market leader. we're market leader We're a huge customer base, over a million customers, excellent relationships with our larger customers, diversified portfolio, and these integrated solutions is what's driving the business. we're a huge customer base over a million customers excellent relationships with our larger customers diversified portfolio and these integrated solutions is what's driving the business The 25 highlights are here. the 25 highlights are here The market, dental market, is stable. the market dental market is stable Units are pretty stable, probably in the U.S. leaning to the positive. units are pretty stable probably in the u.s leaning to the positive There's some pricing pressure in the context of products moving. there's some pricing pressure in the context of products moving When you say pressure, the average ASP of some products are going down. when you say pressure the average asp of some products are going down This is a movement from national brands to corporate brands. this is a movement from national brands to corporate brands But overall, the market is doing well on the dental side, the medical side, and Henry Schein is gaining market share. The sales in all of our businesses have accelerated in the last few quarters. The specialty technology businesses are doing well. And the growth in the distribution from a market share point of view globally is also growing. The value creation activity is going well. We announced over $200 million of value creation, primarily in the areas of driving efficiency, as I noted earlier on, and gross margin enhancement. We have a very good balance sheet. We turn our profits into cash. We deploy our cash in some acquisitions, but also buying back stock. But overall, the market is doing well on the dental side, the medical side, and Henry Schein is gaining market share. but overall the market is doing well on the dental side the medical side and henry schein is gaining market share The sales in all of our businesses have accelerated in the last few quarters. the sales in all of our businesses have accelerated in the last few quarters The specialty technology businesses are doing well. the specialty technology businesses are doing well And the growth in the distribution from a market share point of view globally is also growing. and the growth in the distribution from a market share point of view globally is also growing The value creation activity is going well. the value creation activity is going well We announced over $200 million of value creation, primarily in the areas of driving efficiency, as I noted earlier on, and gross margin enhancement. we announced over $200 million of value creation primarily in the areas of driving efficiency as i noted earlier on and gross margin enhancement We have a very good balance sheet. we have a very good balance sheet We turn our profits into cash. we turn our profits into cash We deploy our cash in some acquisitions, but also buying back stock. we deploy our cash in some acquisitions but also buying back stock And our strategic plan of BOLD+1, with a key component of driving high growth, high margin businesses and our own brands, doing well, where we have a goal of 60% of our operating income coming from these high growth, high margin, and owned brand products. We're well on the way towards that goal for 2027. The long-term growth strategy is on the screen. I just don't want to spend too much time on this. It's all clear. It's here. I'd rather handle a Q&A. I think that's a better use of our time, John. The financial overview, Ron, if you just want to give it to the very top highlights, that'd be very helpful. And our strategic plan of BOLD+1 , with a key component of driving high growth, high margin businesses and our own brands, doing well, where we have a goal of 60% of our operating income coming from these high growth, high margin, and owned brand products. and our strategic plan of bold+1 with a key component of driving high growth high margin businesses and our own brands doing well where we have a goal of 60% of our operating income coming from these high growth high margin and owned brand products We're well on the way towards that goal for 2027. we're well on the way towards that goal for 2027 The long-term growth strategy is on the screen. the long-term growth strategy is on the screen I just don't want to spend too much time on this. i just don't want to spend too much time on this It's all clear. it's all clear It's here. it's here I'd rather handle a Q&A. i'd rather handle a q&a I think that's a better use of our time, John. i think that's a better use of our time john The financial overview, Ron, if you just want to give it to the very top highlights, that'd be very helpful. the financial overview ron if you just want to give it to the very top highlights that'd be very helpful

Speaker 4: Yeah. You can see the trends here. If you go back to 2017, you can see the positive trend lines we had in operating income. We get to 2020. I think we all know what happened in 2020. You see the reduction. In 2020, we had EPS in the second quarter of 2020; we had EPS of zero. It was an absolute break-even quarter for us, so you see that the decline in 2020, and then we got quite the benefit from the demand for PPE, the demand for COVID test kits. You look at a year like 2022 when we had $1.75 billion combined revenues in PPE and COVID test kits. Those revenues are expected to be in 2025 something much more closer to, say, $500 million. So you see the benefit we got from that, the pullback a little bit. Yeah. yeah You can see the trends here. you can see the trends here If you go back to 2017, you can see the positive trend lines we had in operating income. if you go back to 2017 you can see the positive trend lines we had in operating income We get to 2020. we get to 2020 I think we all know what happened in 2020. i think we all know what happened in 2020 You see the reduction. you see the reduction In 2020, we had EPS in the second quarter of 2020; we had EPS of zero. in 2020 we had eps in the second quarter of 2020 we had eps of zero It was an absolute break-even quarter for us, so you see that the decline in 2020, and then we got quite the benefit from the demand for PPE, the demand for COVID test kits. it was an absolute break-even quarter for us so you see that the decline in 2020 and then we got quite the benefit from the demand for ppe the demand for covid test kits You look at a year like 2022 when we had $1.75 billion combined revenues in PPE and COVID test kits. you look at a year like 2022 when we had $1.75 billion combined revenues in ppe and covid test kits Those revenues are expected to be in 2025 something much more closer to, say, $500 million. those revenues are expected to be in 2025 something much more closer to say $500 million So you see the benefit we got from that, the pullback a little bit. so you see the benefit we got from that the pullback a little bit We had some disruption in 2023, as Stanley mentioned, from the cyber attack. The numbers you see on the screen are actually normalized to show what we believe that our earnings would have been without the cyber attack, and then you see the growth. We returned to growth in 2024, and we expect to continue to, as we communicated with our most recent guidance, that in 2025 we will continue to see that growth, so we kind of returned to the growth. One thing I do want to point out, you see the operating income CAGR of 3.6% versus the EPS CAGR of 6.2%, indicative of some slightly more aggressive share repurchase activity that we've done in the last several years, indicating our confidence in the business as we continue to reinvest and provide, I would say, a more tax-efficient way of getting a return to our shareholders as well. We had some disruption in 2023, as Stanley mentioned, from the cyber attack. we had some disruption in 2023 as stanley mentioned from the cyber attack The numbers you see on the screen are actually normalized to show what we believe that our earnings would have been without the cyber attack, and then you see the growth. the numbers you see on the screen are actually normalized to show what we believe that our earnings would have been without the cyber attack and then you see the growth We returned to growth in 2024, and we expect to continue to, as we communicated with our most recent guidance, that in 2025 we will continue to see that growth, so we kind of returned to the growth. we returned to growth in 2024 and we expect to continue to as we communicated with our most recent guidance that in 2025 we will continue to see that growth so we kind of returned to the growth One thing I do want to point out, you see the operating income CAGR of 3.6% versus the EPS CAGR of 6.2%, indicative of some slightly more aggressive share repurchase activity that we've done in the last several years, indicating our confidence in the business as we continue to reinvest and provide, I would say, a more tax-efficient way of getting a return to our shareholders as well. one thing i do want to point out you see the operating income cagr of 3.6% versus the eps cagr of 6.2% indicative of some slightly more aggressive share repurchase activity that we've done in the last several years indicating our confidence in the business as we continue to reinvest and provide i would say a more tax-efficient way of getting a return to our shareholders as well

Speaker 5: Thanks, Ron. That's fine. Thanks, Ron. thanks ron That's fine. that's fine Oh, all set. Oh, all set. oh all set

Speaker 3: I think, Stan, you've been coming here much longer than I have. Just wanted to start with a bit of a retrospective. Where do you see as we enter 2026? I know you're not providing guidance, so I won't try too much, but talk about how you've seen the dental markets evolve and where you think we're going over the next, call it, 18 months. I think, Stan, you've been coming here much longer than I have. i think stan you've been coming here much longer than i have Just wanted to start with a bit of a retrospective. just wanted to start with a bit of a retrospective Where do you see as we enter 2026? where do you see as we enter 2026 I know you're not providing guidance, so I won't try too much, but talk about how you've seen the dental markets evolve and where you think we're going over the next, call it, 18 months. i know you're not providing guidance so i won't try too much but talk about how you've seen the dental markets evolve and where you think we're going over the next call it 18 months

Speaker 5: It's true. I remember coming to the hotel when it was easy to get into the elevator. I would say J.P. Morgan has done a great job at making this the healthcare conference. Where we're heading is, yes, supply chain is important, very important, making sure that customers get the right products at the right time rapidly. The quality is good. Equipment, sales, and service are very important. But at the end of the day, what practitioners are looking for is to operate a more efficient practice so that they can focus on clinical care. And that's what's driving the Henry Schein business. Andrea and Tom can talk more about that. The markets are OK in units. It's stable, leaning positive, maybe a little bit more than positive. I'm quite optimistic about where the consumable business is heading. It's true. it's true I remember coming to the hotel when it was easy to get into the elevator. i remember coming to the hotel when it was easy to get into the elevator I would say J.P. i would say j.p Morgan has done a great job at making this the healthcare conference. morgan has done a great job at making this the healthcare conference Where we're heading is, yes, supply chain is important, very important, making sure that customers get the right products at the right time rapidly. where we're heading is yes supply chain is important very important making sure that customers get the right products at the right time rapidly The quality is good. the quality is good Equipment, sales, and service are very important. equipment sales and service are very important But at the end of the day, what practitioners are looking for is to operate a more efficient practice so that they can focus on clinical care. but at the end of the day what practitioners are looking for is to operate a more efficient practice so that they can focus on clinical care And that's what's driving the Henry Schein business. and that's what's driving the henry schein business Andrea and Tom can talk more about that. andrea and tom can talk more about that The markets are OK in units. the markets are ok in units It's stable, leaning positive, maybe a little bit more than positive. it's stable leaning positive maybe a little bit more than positive I'm quite optimistic about where the consumable business is heading. i'm quite optimistic about where the consumable business is heading Equipment, the traditional business is stable, but there's significant opportunity in the digital space. The area of integration of various digital functions is where the real opportunity exists. It starts with the practice management system, goes to electronic medical record, ties in various AI apps, ties in various equipment, digital equipment integrated, and that's the exciting part of dentistry, so yes, all of the consumables and equipment, that's all exciting. There's lots of opportunity, but John, where dentistry is heading, driving efficiency in the practice, enabling better clinical outcomes with the technology that is now being made available and integrating that technology is where the exciting part of dentistry is, and that's what we're focused on. Equipment, the traditional business is stable, but there's significant opportunity in the digital space. equipment the traditional business is stable but there's significant opportunity in the digital space The area of integration of various digital functions is where the real opportunity exists. the area of integration of various digital functions is where the real opportunity exists It starts with the practice management system, goes to electronic medical record, ties in various AI apps, ties in various equipment, digital equipment integrated, and that's the exciting part of dentistry, so yes, all of the consumables and equipment, that's all exciting. it starts with the practice management system goes to electronic medical record ties in various ai apps ties in various equipment digital equipment integrated and that's the exciting part of dentistry so yes all of the consumables and equipment that's all exciting There's lots of opportunity, but John, where dentistry is heading, driving efficiency in the practice, enabling better clinical outcomes with the technology that is now being made available and integrating that technology is where the exciting part of dentistry is, and that's what we're focused on. there's lots of opportunity but john where dentistry is heading driving efficiency in the practice enabling better clinical outcomes with the technology that is now being made available and integrating that technology is where the exciting part of dentistry is and that's what we're focused on

Speaker 3: That makes sense. And I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask for a little bit more details about Fred to get to know him. And I think the feedback on our end has been, it makes sense, someone from Thermo coming over kind of a distribution owned brand business. Can you talk about, as you went through the hiring process and got to know Fred better, anecdotally, where are the areas you see him having a natural overlap, really strong understandings? Are there areas where you think this is going to be kind of his learning curve? What do you think about that as you go through the hiring process and steps that he's taking? That makes sense. that makes sense And I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask for a little bit more details about Fred to get to know him. and i'm sure i'm not the first person to ask for a little bit more details about fred to get to know him And I think the feedback on our end has been, it makes sense, someone from Thermo coming over kind of a distribution owned brand business. and i think the feedback on our end has been it makes sense someone from thermo coming over kind of a distribution owned brand business Can you talk about, as you went through the hiring process and got to know Fred better, anecdotally, where are the areas you see him having a natural overlap, really strong understandings? can you talk about as you went through the hiring process and got to know fred better anecdotally where are the areas you see him having a natural overlap really strong understandings Are there areas where you think this is going to be kind of his learning curve? are there areas where you think this is going to be kind of his learning curve What do you think about that as you go through the hiring process and steps that he's taking? what do you think about that as you go through the hiring process and steps that he's taking

Speaker 5: Yeah. John, I think the models are very similar, but I'm sure that Thermo does things differently, and it's always good to have a second pair of eyes look at what we're doing. We've got a very enthusiastic board. We've added to our board in the last couple of years. People are bringing a lot of great experience, so I think there's a significant buy-in to BOLD+1. No question, the high growth, high margin businesses are important as we diversify our income stream. Fred, I think, will look at that. He's got tremendous experience in that area, but I think he'll be also of great value in driving efficiency and driving value-added services in our distribution business, so I do think that the combination of the high growth, high margin, and the traditional distribution business benefiting from Fred's experience will be important. Yeah. yeah John, I think the models are very similar, but I'm sure that Thermo does things differently, and it's always good to have a second pair of eyes look at what we're doing. john i think the models are very similar but i'm sure that thermo does things differently and it's always good to have a second pair of eyes look at what we're doing We've got a very enthusiastic board. we've got a very enthusiastic board We've added to our board in the last couple of years. we've added to our board in the last couple of years People are bringing a lot of great experience, so I think there's a significant buy-in to BOLD+1 . people are bringing a lot of great experience so i think there's a significant buy-in to bold+1 No question, the high growth, high margin businesses are important as we diversify our income stream. no question the high growth high margin businesses are important as we diversify our income stream Fred, I think, will look at that. fred i think will look at that He's got tremendous experience in that area, but I think he'll be also of great value in driving efficiency and driving value-added services in our distribution business, so I do think that the combination of the high growth, high margin, and the traditional distribution business benefiting from Fred's experience will be important. he's got tremendous experience in that area but i think he'll be also of great value in driving efficiency and driving value-added services in our distribution business so i do think that the combination of the high growth high margin and the traditional distribution business benefiting from fred's experience will be important But Fred has also led, my understanding, high-powered teams. And we have a very good team. The team is raring to go on advancing our BOLD+1 initiative and working closely with them on that. And of course, yes, there's the value creation opportunity. We bought a lot of businesses. There's technology available. There's certain functions that can be centralized. These are all areas that Fred has had experience in and will complement our team. But it's not as if our team doesn't have also good experience in this area. Andrea and Tom have experience with other companies as well. It's going to be a great team, I think. But Fred has also led, my understanding, high-powered teams. but fred has also led my understanding high-powered teams And we have a very good team. and we have a very good team The team is raring to go on advancing our BOLD+1 initiative and working closely with them on that. the team is raring to go on advancing our bold+1 initiative and working closely with them on that And of course, yes, there's the value creation opportunity. and of course yes there's the value creation opportunity We bought a lot of businesses. we bought a lot of businesses There's technology available. there's technology available There's certain functions that can be centralized. there's certain functions that can be centralized These are all areas that Fred has had experience in and will complement our team. these are all areas that fred has had experience in and will complement our team But it's not as if our team doesn't have also good experience in this area. but it's not as if our team doesn't have also good experience in this area Andrea and Tom have experience with other companies as well. andrea and tom have experience with other companies as well It's going to be a great team, I think. it's going to be a great team i think Of course, then there's all the corporate functions where a lot of great succession has taken place over the last five or six years where people have retired and new people have come in or been promoted from the financial side to the legal side to the supply chain side to. Of course, then there's all the corporate functions where a lot of great succession has taken place over the last five or six years where people have retired and new people have come in or been promoted from the financial side to the legal side to the supply chain side to. of course then there's all the corporate functions where a lot of great succession has taken place over the last five or six years where people have retired and new people have come in or been promoted from the financial side to the legal side to the supply chain side to

Speaker 1: HR? HR? hr

Speaker 5: What was that? What was that? what was that

Speaker 1: Human resources? Human resources? human resources

Speaker 5: Of course, human resources and the great succession plan and the whole world of computers, of IT, so I think there's a lot he's going to add, and there's a lot of excitement. Of course, it's always helpful when a business is doing well. That's what drives momentum and gets morale up. Of course, human resources and the great succession plan and the whole world of computers, of IT, so I think there's a lot he's going to add, and there's a lot of excitement. of course human resources and the great succession plan and the whole world of computers of it so i think there's a lot he's going to add and there's a lot of excitement Of course, it's always helpful when a business is doing well. of course it's always helpful when a business is doing well That's what drives momentum and gets morale up. that's what drives momentum and gets morale up

Speaker 3: I think you mentioned the value creation plan. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about the $200 million of net operating profit improvement. I know you haven't given detailed buckets, and I'm sure that's something that everyone's going to be waiting for in a few weeks to hear about. But can you just talk a little bit about the analysis that was performed? Kind of what gave you the confidence to step out with a $200 million number? And kind of when you talked to your consultants, what they were showing you that kind of gave you conviction? I think you mentioned the value creation plan. i think you mentioned the value creation plan I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about the $200 million of net operating profit improvement. i think i'd be remiss if i didn't ask about the $200 million of net operating profit improvement I know you haven't given detailed buckets, and I'm sure that's something that everyone's going to be waiting for in a few weeks to hear about. i know you haven't given detailed buckets and i'm sure that's something that everyone's going to be waiting for in a few weeks to hear about But can you just talk a little bit about the analysis that was performed? but can you just talk a little bit about the analysis that was performed Kind of what gave you the confidence to step out with a $200 million number? kind of what gave you the confidence to step out with a $200 million number And kind of when you talked to your consultants, what they were showing you that kind of gave you conviction? and kind of when you talked to your consultants what they were showing you that kind of gave you conviction

Speaker 5: Why doesn't Ron give you the math, and the two people responsible for having put the plan together can add a little bit to that? Why doesn't Ron give you the math, and the two people responsible for having put the plan together can add a little bit to that? why doesn't ron give you the math and the two people responsible for having put the plan together can add a little bit to that

Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly, John. I think that in terms of the $200 million, we're really focused on the aggregate number as a management team. Excuse me. So whether we deliver the operating income improvement at the gross profit level or at the operating expense level through savings, we'll be agnostic to that in terms of the focus is really the aggregate number. When we provide guidance at the end of February, we'll talk a little more to what our expectations are and the impact on 2026. 2026 will be a year that we'll have to make certain investments in order to achieve these savings. But I do clearly expect a net benefit in 2026 from these initiatives and with some good momentum coming out of 2026 going into 2027. As we said, we expect the $200 million plus to come over the next few years. Yeah, certainly, John. yeah certainly john I think that in terms of the $200 million, we're really focused on the aggregate number as a management team. i think that in terms of the $200 million we're really focused on the aggregate number as a management team Excuse me. excuse me So whether we deliver the operating income improvement at the gross profit level or at the operating expense level through savings, we'll be agnostic to that in terms of the focus is really the aggregate number. so whether we deliver the operating income improvement at the gross profit level or at the operating expense level through savings we'll be agnostic to that in terms of the focus is really the aggregate number When we provide guidance at the end of February, we'll talk a little more to what our expectations are and the impact on 2026. 2026 will be a year that we'll have to make certain investments in order to achieve these savings. when we provide guidance at the end of february we'll talk a little more to what our expectations are and the impact on 2026 2026 will be a year that we'll have to make certain investments in order to achieve these savings But I do clearly expect a net benefit in 2026 from these initiatives and with some good momentum coming out of 2026 going into 2027. but i do clearly expect a net benefit in 2026 from these initiatives and with some good momentum coming out of 2026 going into 2027 As we said, we expect the $200 million plus to come over the next few years. as we said we expect the $200 million plus to come over the next few years But we feel very good about our ability to do this. We have the whole organization behind this. This isn't just a few people working to achieve this. It's the whole organization. I'll defer to both Tom and Andrea. As Stanley said, they've kind of led some of a big piece of these initiatives. So I also want to get them involved in this. But we feel very good about our ability to do this. but we feel very good about our ability to do this We have the whole organization behind this. we have the whole organization behind this This isn't just a few people working to achieve this. this isn't just a few people working to achieve this It's the whole organization. it's the whole organization I'll defer to both Tom and Andrea. i'll defer to both tom and andrea As Stanley said, they've kind of led some of a big piece of these initiatives. as stanley said they've kind of led some of a big piece of these initiatives So I also want to get them involved in this. so i also want to get them involved in this

Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, so I've been leading the G&A project, and my peer here, Andrea, has been leading the gross profit improvement project, and on the G&A side, Henry Schein's been made up of a lot of different acquisitions over the years, and the ability to take these acquisitions and look at the back office functions and start to look enterprise-wide at some of the shared services, start to maximize those shared services, and also look to offshore some of those shared services to reduce costs, as well as looking across the enterprise and looking to maximize indirect procurement, so things like travel, facilities, all the things that don't go into the products, but across all these different acquisitions, we're independently doing a lot of their own things, so doing a good bottoms-up approach, which we did. We built this from the bottoms up. Yeah, sure, so I've been leading the G&A project, and my peer here, Andrea, has been leading the gross profit improvement project, and on the G&A side, Henry Schein's been made up of a lot of different acquisitions over the years, and the ability to take these acquisitions and look at the back office functions and start to look enterprise-wide at some of the shared services, start to maximize those shared services, and also look to offshore some of those shared services to reduce costs, as well as looking across the enterprise and looking to maximize indirect procurement, so things like travel, facilities, all the things that don't go into the products, but across all these different acquisitions, we're independently doing a lot of their own things, so doing a good bottoms-up approach, which we did. yeah sure so i've been leading the g&a project and my peer here andrea has been leading the gross profit improvement project and on the g&a side henry schein's been made up of a lot of different acquisitions over the years and the ability to take these acquisitions and look at the back office functions and start to look enterprise-wide at some of the shared services start to maximize those shared services and also look to offshore some of those shared services to reduce costs as well as looking across the enterprise and looking to maximize indirect procurement so things like travel facilities all the things that don't go into the products but across all these different acquisitions we're independently doing a lot of their own things so doing a good bottoms-up approach which we did We built this from the bottoms up. we built this from the bottoms up All of our teams were involved, came up with our projections, and we're off and running. So, Andrea. All of our teams were involved, came up with our projections, and we're off and running. all of our teams were involved came up with our projections and we're off and running So, Andrea. so andrea

Speaker 2: Yeah. The other bucket is the GP improvement value creation project. We are looking at how we do pricing. We are looking at our assortment. We are looking at how we can leverage the right price to increase share of wallet or to push our own brands where appropriate. It's not a new initiative. To be fair, we were working on this pricing project before, but with this value creation initiative and with the support of an external consultant, we scaled up the level of tools, technology applied to the analysis, a lot of analytical skills that we brought into the organization to be able really to take strong and informative decisions on our pricing. And we already executed the first wave of initiative in 2025. And we have a program to continue during 2026 and 2027. Yeah. yeah The other bucket is the GP improvement value creation project. the other bucket is the gp improvement value creation project We are looking at how we do pricing. we are looking at how we do pricing We are looking at our assortment. we are looking at our assortment We are looking at how we can leverage the right price to increase share of wallet or to push our own brands where appropriate. we are looking at how we can leverage the right price to increase share of wallet or to push our own brands where appropriate It's not a new initiative. it's not a new initiative To be fair, we were working on this pricing project before, but with this value creation initiative and with the support of an external consultant, we scaled up the level of tools, technology applied to the analysis, a lot of analytical skills that we brought into the organization to be able really to take strong and informative decisions on our pricing. to be fair we were working on this pricing project before but with this value creation initiative and with the support of an external consultant we scaled up the level of tools technology applied to the analysis a lot of analytical skills that we brought into the organization to be able really to take strong and informative decisions on our pricing And we already executed the first wave of initiative in 2025. and we already executed the first wave of initiative in 2025 And we have a program to continue during 2026 and 2027. and we have a program to continue during 2026 and 2027 These initiatives are part of the evaluation that brought us to the $200 million plus. These initiatives are part of the evaluation that brought us to the $200 million plus. these initiatives are part of the evaluation that brought us to the $200 million plus

Speaker 3: Great and maybe just a quick clarification for Ron. So when you say net benefit in 2026, this is not a run rate. This is in the totality of the year, there should be some uplift in 2026. Is that the right way to think about it? Great and maybe just a quick clarification for Ron. great and maybe just a quick clarification for ron So when you say net benefit in 2026, this is not a run rate. so when you say net benefit in 2026 this is not a run rate This is in the totality of the year, there should be some uplift in 2026. this is in the totality of the year there should be some uplift in 2026 Is that the right way to think about it? is that the right way to think about it

Speaker 4: Yeah. I would expect that while we will have to make some investment in 2026, that we will achieve some savings in 2026 that will exceed that investment, so we'll get some net benefit out of that. When we talk about the $200 million, it's going to take us over a period of multiple years to do that. It's not going to be a linear benefit, right? I think that we're trying to position ourselves that we really can ramp up some benefits of this as we get into the back half of 2026 and into 2027. Yeah. yeah I would expect that while we will have to make some investment in 2026, that we will achieve some savings in 2026 that will exceed that investment, so we'll get some net benefit out of that. i would expect that while we will have to make some investment in 2026 that we will achieve some savings in 2026 that will exceed that investment so we'll get some net benefit out of that When we talk about the $200 million, it's going to take us over a period of multiple years to do that. when we talk about the $200 million it's going to take us over a period of multiple years to do that It's not going to be a linear benefit, right? it's not going to be a linear benefit right I think that we're trying to position ourselves that we really can ramp up some benefits of this as we get into the back half of 2026 and into 2027. i think that we're trying to position ourselves that we really can ramp up some benefits of this as we get into the back half of 2026 and into 2027

Speaker 3: And then just maybe for Andrea, on the gross profit side, how much of this is tied to things that are within your own control, just on pricing? Or if we just think about kind of the current macro backdrop for dental, is that sufficient? Or do you need an improvement in the overall backdrop to kind of hit your targets? And then just maybe for Andrea, on the gross profit side, how much of this is tied to things that are within your own control, just on pricing? and then just maybe for andrea on the gross profit side how much of this is tied to things that are within your own control just on pricing Or if we just think about kind of the current macro backdrop for dental, is that sufficient? or if we just think about kind of the current macro backdrop for dental is that sufficient Or do you need an improvement in the overall backdrop to kind of hit your targets? or do you need an improvement in the overall backdrop to kind of hit your targets

Speaker 2: No. Of course, we are not immune from what is going on around us, but the project is based on what we can control and how we price more smartly, how we use data to really drive pricing and portfolio positioning based on customer behaviors, all these kinds of sophistication, and this is in our control. No. no Of course, we are not immune from what is going on around us, but the project is based on what we can control and how we price more smartly, how we use data to really drive pricing and portfolio positioning based on customer behaviors, all these kinds of sophistication, and this is in our control. of course we are not immune from what is going on around us but the project is based on what we can control and how we price more smartly how we use data to really drive pricing and portfolio positioning based on customer behaviors all these kinds of sophistication and this is in our control

Speaker 3: Okay. Then just as we think about just the general dental market trends, I think we kind of heard volume skewing somewhat positively with some maybe top pricing ASP pressures as kind of the framing. When I think about the balance of 2025, really a tale of two halves, especially on dental consumables, where first half was pretty muted on a revenue line, and then you kind of picked up into kind of, call it high, low single digits, if that's a thing, to maybe mid-single digits. How do I think about is that you can grow, call it mid-slow, 3-4% in a slightly positive volume backdrop with potentially some ASP pressure. Is that kind of the right way to think about how that translates, given that you, I think, as you said, you're gaining share? Okay. okay Then just as we think about just the general dental market trends, I think we kind of heard volume skewing somewhat positively with some maybe top pricing ASP pressures as kind of the framing. then just as we think about just the general dental market trends i think we kind of heard volume skewing somewhat positively with some maybe top pricing asp pressures as kind of the framing When I think about the balance of 2025, really a tale of two halves, especially on dental consumables, where first half was pretty muted on a revenue line, and then you kind of picked up into kind of, call it high, low single digits, if that's a thing, to maybe mid-single digits. when i think about the balance of 2025 really a tale of two halves especially on dental consumables where first half was pretty muted on a revenue line and then you kind of picked up into kind of call it high low single digits if that's a thing to maybe mid-single digits How do I think about is that you can grow, call it mid-slow, 3-4% in a slightly positive volume backdrop with potentially some ASP pressure. how do i think about is that you can grow call it mid-slow 3-4% in a slightly positive volume backdrop with potentially some asp pressure Is that kind of the right way to think about how that translates, given that you, I think, as you said, you're gaining share? is that kind of the right way to think about how that translates given that you i think as you said you're gaining share

Speaker 2: I mean, I can elaborate on what we are doing that gives us the confidence to, let's say, continue to grow. I mean, we already commented. The dental market is overall slightly positive, let's say, and of course, there are exceptions in the specialty that are growing faster, or there are segments of the market that are growing faster, like DSOs, but overall, slightly positive. Where we get the growth is in gaining share, and we are gaining share. We started after the cyber incident. I hate to speak about the cyber incident because it's behind us, but we have to admit that for roughly 18 months, our focus was mainly on recovering and defending our position. Q2 last year, we started again really aggressively to go out and execute on our strategy more than recovering, and the results are clear. I mean, I can elaborate on what we are doing that gives us the confidence to, let's say, continue to grow. i mean i can elaborate on what we are doing that gives us the confidence to let's say continue to grow I mean, we already commented. i mean we already commented The dental market is overall slightly positive, let's say, and of course, there are exceptions in the specialty that are growing faster, or there are segments of the market that are growing faster, like DSOs, but overall, slightly positive. the dental market is overall slightly positive let's say and of course there are exceptions in the specialty that are growing faster or there are segments of the market that are growing faster like dsos but overall slightly positive Where we get the growth is in gaining share, and we are gaining share. where we get the growth is in gaining share and we are gaining share We started after the cyber incident. we started after the cyber incident I hate to speak about the cyber incident because it's behind us, but we have to admit that for roughly 18 months, our focus was mainly on recovering and defending our position. i hate to speak about the cyber incident because it's behind us but we have to admit that for roughly 18 months our focus was mainly on recovering and defending our position Q2 last year, we started again really aggressively to go out and execute on our strategy more than recovering, and the results are clear. q2 last year we started again really aggressively to go out and execute on our strategy more than recovering and the results are clear I mean, we announced it in Q3, strong momentum on sales. We gained market share. Going into Q4, this momentum continued, and we believe we are in a very good moment where we are gaining market share, and this is a result of our commercial plans, our broad portfolio of products and solutions. We have the broadest portfolio in the industry, especially in the dental segment, with our own corporate brands, with our own business solutions, and we are investing also in our sales force. We have more people on the field. We have more people on the phone. We are investing in digital channel, so when you combine the portfolio with our omnichannel strategy, we are gaining market share, and we see the results. I mean, we announced it in Q3, strong momentum on sales. i mean we announced it in q3 strong momentum on sales We gained market share. we gained market share Going into Q4, this momentum continued, and we believe we are in a very good moment where we are gaining market share, and this is a result of our commercial plans, our broad portfolio of products and solutions. going into q4 this momentum continued and we believe we are in a very good moment where we are gaining market share and this is a result of our commercial plans our broad portfolio of products and solutions We have the broadest portfolio in the industry, especially in the dental segment, with our own corporate brands, with our own business solutions, and we are investing also in our sales force. we have the broadest portfolio in the industry especially in the dental segment with our own corporate brands with our own business solutions and we are investing also in our sales force We have more people on the field. we have more people on the field We have more people on the phone. we have more people on the phone We are investing in digital channel, so when you combine the portfolio with our omnichannel strategy, we are gaining market share, and we see the results. we are investing in digital channel so when you combine the portfolio with our omnichannel strategy we are gaining market share and we see the results

Speaker 3: Is there a particular area? I think you mentioned DSOs being kind of a positive point. Is that where you see kind of the above-trend growth coming from? Or is it something particular else that you'd highlight? Or is it broad-based? Is there a particular area? is there a particular area I think you mentioned DSOs being kind of a positive point. i think you mentioned dsos being kind of a positive point Is that where you see kind of the above-trend growth coming from? is that where you see kind of the above-trend growth coming from Or is it something particular else that you'd highlight? or is it something particular else that you'd highlight Or is it broad-based? or is it broad-based

Speaker 2: I mean, if we look at the different segments in the market, independent practice, mid-market, or mid-DSOs and big DSOs, we believe the growth is more on the mid-market/big DSOs, yes. They're growing a little bit faster. I mean, if we look at the different segments in the market, independent practice, mid-market, or mid-DSOs and big DSOs, we believe the growth is more on the mid-market/big DSOs, yes. i mean if we look at the different segments in the market independent practice mid-market or mid-dsos and big dsos we believe the growth is more on the mid-market/big dsos yes They're growing a little bit faster. they're growing a little bit faster

Speaker 3: Thinking about that, has there been a change in dentists' purchasing habits? I think back to 2024, and there was a whole topic of trade down and move to national private label for national brands. Is that a sustained trend? Is that a moment in time? How do you see kind of purchasing habits changing or not changing? Thinking about that, has there been a change in dentists' purchasing habits? thinking about that has there been a change in dentists' purchasing habits I think back to 2024, and there was a whole topic of trade down and move to national private label for national brands. i think back to 2024 and there was a whole topic of trade down and move to national private label for national brands Is that a sustained trend? is that a sustained trend Is that a moment in time? is that a moment in time How do you see kind of purchasing habits changing or not changing? how do you see kind of purchasing habits changing or not changing

Speaker 2: If we talk about dentists and probably customers in general, they are more ROI-focused. So they look at investment. If we talk about equipment, they look at investment that brings efficiency or productivity. And this is why we see more investment in digital equipment, because it allows them to automate processes or to perform in a more efficient way complex procedures. If we talk about merchandise, similarly, I mean, we don't talk about ROI, but we talk about being cautious on price-quality ratio. And where there is no innovation, the focus goes to the private brands because they can get the same quality at a lower price. If we talk about dentists and probably customers in general, they are more ROI-focused. if we talk about dentists and probably customers in general they are more roi-focused So they look at investment. so they look at investment If we talk about equipment, they look at investment that brings efficiency or productivity. if we talk about equipment they look at investment that brings efficiency or productivity And this is why we see more investment in digital equipment, because it allows them to automate processes or to perform in a more efficient way complex procedures. and this is why we see more investment in digital equipment because it allows them to automate processes or to perform in a more efficient way complex procedures If we talk about merchandise, similarly, I mean, we don't talk about ROI, but we talk about being cautious on price-quality ratio. if we talk about merchandise similarly i mean we don't talk about roi but we talk about being cautious on price-quality ratio And where there is no innovation, the focus goes to the private brands because they can get the same quality at a lower price. and where there is no innovation the focus goes to the private brands because they can get the same quality at a lower price

Speaker 3: And then we talk about, again, this ASP pressure somewhat. And I know it's like you can't generalize to every single category being similar. But one of the things that we've talked about in the past is this idea of innovation is something that drives ASP inflation and is a big part of kind of maybe a return to growth. I think about things like Curaden, for example, which you guys have worked a lot with vVARDIS on. Do you see a pipeline where we maybe go from kind of a, I'll call it more tepid and innovation backdrop to kind of something where there is a path for more new products to come to market? And then we talk about, again, this ASP pressure somewhat. and then we talk about again this asp pressure somewhat And I know it's like you can't generalize to every single category being similar. and i know it's like you can't generalize to every single category being similar But one of the things that we've talked about in the past is this idea of innovation is something that drives ASP inflation and is a big part of kind of maybe a return to growth. but one of the things that we've talked about in the past is this idea of innovation is something that drives asp inflation and is a big part of kind of maybe a return to growth I think about things like Curaden, for example, which you guys have worked a lot with vVARDIS on. i think about things like curaden for example which you guys have worked a lot with vvardis on Do you see a pipeline where we maybe go from kind of a, I'll call it more tepid and innovation backdrop to kind of something where there is a path for more new products to come to market? do you see a pipeline where we maybe go from kind of a i'll call it more tepid and innovation backdrop to kind of something where there is a path for more new products to come to market

Speaker 2: We would love to have more and more innovation. And you mentioned that Curaden is a very good example. End of last year, we announced that we are the exclusive distribution partner for Curaden in the U.S. and the U.K. And when you have innovation, you don't have the same price pressure. And I mean, we always, in the conversation with our manufacturing partner, we encourage them to come out with innovation because this is where the market doesn't get commoditized, and we can get pricing advantages. We would love to have more and more innovation. we would love to have more and more innovation And you mentioned that Curaden is a very good example. and you mentioned that curaden is a very good example End of last year, we announced that we are the exclusive distribution partner for Curaden in the U.S. and the U.K. end of last year we announced that we are the exclusive distribution partner for curaden in the u.s and the u.k And when you have innovation, you don't have the same price pressure. and when you have innovation you don't have the same price pressure And I mean, we always, in the conversation with our manufacturing partner, we encourage them to come out with innovation because this is where the market doesn't get commoditized, and we can get pricing advantages. and i mean we always in the conversation with our manufacturing partner we encourage them to come out with innovation because this is where the market doesn't get commoditized and we can get pricing advantages

Speaker 3: I think there's always a question, and this is kind of maybe both a DSO and equipment question, but the benefit of potentially lower interest rates. I think this has been kind of on people's minds for a bit now. Do you see some level of upward performance tied to lower interest rates in the near term, medium term? I think there's always a question, and this is kind of maybe both a DSO and equipment question, but the benefit of potentially lower interest rates. i think there's always a question and this is kind of maybe both a dso and equipment question but the benefit of potentially lower interest rates I think this has been kind of on people's minds for a bit now. i think this has been kind of on people's minds for a bit now Do you see some level of upward performance tied to lower interest rates in the near term, medium term? do you see some level of upward performance tied to lower interest rates in the near term medium term

Speaker 2: I mean, I can't rely on and jump in, but I don't believe it's huge. But yes, of course, when you do an investment and you borrow capital, interest rates have an impact. But interest rates have an impact also on DSOs buying practices. So yes, there is a correlation, not huge, because when customers see an ROI, they will invest, and they continue to invest in equipment. I mean, I can't rely on and jump in, but I don't believe it's huge. i mean i can't rely on and jump in but i don't believe it's huge But yes, of course, when you do an investment and you borrow capital, interest rates have an impact. but yes of course when you do an investment and you borrow capital interest rates have an impact But interest rates have an impact also on DSOs buying practices. but interest rates have an impact also on dsos buying practices So yes, there is a correlation, not huge, because when customers see an ROI, they will invest, and they continue to invest in equipment. so yes there is a correlation not huge because when customers see an roi they will invest and they continue to invest in equipment

Speaker 4: Yeah. And John, just to add to that, I think that I always think of the interest rates and how they impact us. There's kind of a short-term versus long-term impact. The short-term impact of lower interest rates, you can see an immediate bump in demand for equipment. I don't think it's completely linear. I do think dentists are able to kind of work around some of the higher interest rates when they are present in the economy. But we do see. I think it would be fair to say you would expect a small bump in equipment sales with a decline in interest rates. In the long term, Andrea mentioned DSOs who acquire practices, but also a lot of DSOs will build out de novo practices. Yeah. yeah and And John, just to add to that, I think that I always think of the interest rates and how they impact us. and john just to add to that i think that i always think of the interest rates and how they impact us There's kind of a short-term versus long-term impact. there's kind of a short-term versus long-term impact The short-term impact of lower interest rates, you can see an immediate bump in demand for equipment. the short-term impact of lower interest rates you can see an immediate bump in demand for equipment I don't think it's completely linear. i don't think it's completely linear I do think dentists are able to kind of work around some of the higher interest rates when they are present in the economy. i do think dentists are able to kind of work around some of the higher interest rates when they are present in the economy But we do see. but we do see I think it would be fair to say you would expect a small bump in equipment sales with a decline in interest rates. i think it would be fair to say you would expect a small bump in equipment sales with a decline in interest rates In the long term, Andrea mentioned DSOs who acquire practices, but also a lot of DSOs will build out de novo practices. in the long term andrea mentioned dsos who acquire practices but also a lot of dsos will build out de novo practices At lower interest rates, just the math in terms of the ROI and what the hurdle rate is on building out those practices gets easier if you have lower interest rates, lower cost of capital. That's important to us because that expands the supply of dentistry services. That larger supply of dentistry services gives us more opportunity to sell more products too. At lower interest rates, just the math in terms of the ROI and what the hurdle rate is on building out those practices gets easier if you have lower interest rates, lower cost of capital. at lower interest rates just the math in terms of the roi and what the hurdle rate is on building out those practices gets easier if you have lower interest rates lower cost of capital That's important to us because that expands the supply of dentistry services. that's important to us because that expands the supply of dentistry services That larger supply of dentistry services gives us more opportunity to sell more products too. that larger supply of dentistry services gives us more opportunity to sell more products too

Speaker 3: Great. And I want to bring Tom in here, what I was hammering on, Andrea, the entire time. Implants. A little bit of some moving parts in the third quarter. I think you had kind of a bolus of growth in your value book, which kind of made a bit of a, I think, mixed shift, if I remember correctly. Can you just talk us through how you're seeing the different buckets of implants performing right now and kind of where your customer base is interested in spending more or less? Great. great And I want to bring Tom in here, what I was hammering on, Andrea, the entire time. and i want to bring tom in here what i was hammering on andrea the entire time Implants. implants A little bit of some moving parts in the third quarter. a little bit of some moving parts in the third quarter I think you had kind of a bolus of growth in your value book, which kind of made a bit of a, I think, mixed shift, if I remember correctly. i think you had kind of a bolus of growth in your value book which kind of made a bit of a i think mixed shift if i remember correctly Can you just talk us through how you're seeing the different buckets of implants performing right now and kind of where your customer base is interested in spending more or less? can you just talk us through how you're seeing the different buckets of implants performing right now and kind of where your customer base is interested in spending more or less

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's dependent on the geography. In the U.S., there's been a big move over the years to go more towards the value. And we're positioned well with our acquisition we did two years ago with our S.I.N. implants. And in other areas like parts of Germany, parts of Europe like Germany, South America, Brazil, those markets are growing faster. Germany, in particular, is more of a premium brand. So it's all specific on which country, which area, and which product category we're in, so. Yeah. yeah I think it's dependent on the geography. i think it's dependent on the geography In the U.S., there's been a big move over the years to go more towards the value. in the u.s there's been a big move over the years to go more towards the value And we're positioned well with our acquisition we did two years ago with our S.I.N. implants. and we're positioned well with our acquisition we did two years ago with our s.i.n implants And in other areas like parts of Germany, parts of Europe like Germany, South America, Brazil, those markets are growing faster. and in other areas like parts of germany parts of europe like germany south america brazil those markets are growing faster Germany, in particular, is more of a premium brand. germany in particular is more of a premium brand So it's all specific on which country, which area, and which product category we're in, so. so it's all specific on which country which area and which product category we're in so

Speaker 3: Thinking about you've kind of pivoted your implant book over the last, I'll call it, three years, right? The S.I.N. acquisition, your launch of the new products, kind of more upstream. Do you feel that there are any kind of, not to use a lack of a better word, a hole in your implant book? Thinking about you've kind of pivoted your implant book over the last, I'll call it, three years, right? thinking about you've kind of pivoted your implant book over the last i'll call it three years right The S.I.N. acquisition, your launch of the new products, kind of more upstream. the s.i.n acquisition your launch of the new products kind of more upstream Do you feel that there are any kind of, not to use a lack of a better word, a hole in your implant book? do you feel that there are any kind of not to use a lack of a better word a hole in your implant book

Speaker 1: No. I think our implant portfolio is very well positioned across the different brands we have. I think the opportunity for us is to unify them a little bit more and come to market more as one company versus four or five independent companies, and that's part of our strategic plan. It's what we've been working on and looking forward to us getting that in place over the next year or two. No. no I think our implant portfolio is very well positioned across the different brands we have. i think our implant portfolio is very well positioned across the different brands we have I think the opportunity for us is to unify them a little bit more and come to market more as one company versus four or five independent companies, and that's part of our strategic plan. i think the opportunity for us is to unify them a little bit more and come to market more as one company versus four or five independent companies and that's part of our strategic plan It's what we've been working on and looking forward to us getting that in place over the next year or two. it's what we've been working on and looking forward to us getting that in place over the next year or two

Speaker 3: Great. Maybe to move to medical quickly. Some moving parts right now, I would imagine, between kind of, I would say, cough, cold, and flu ran a little bit soft in the fourth quarter, has picked up in the last two weeks. I can anecdotally say that I was really sick two weeks ago. Great. great Maybe to move to medical quickly. maybe to move to medical quickly Some moving parts right now, I would imagine, between kind of, I would say, cough, cold, and flu ran a little bit soft in the fourth quarter, has picked up in the last two weeks. some moving parts right now i would imagine between kind of i would say cough cold and flu ran a little bit soft in the fourth quarter has picked up in the last two weeks I can anecdotally say that I was really sick two weeks ago. i can anecdotally say that i was really sick two weeks ago

Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you. thank you

Speaker 3: Yeah. But then the other question is your business does distribute vaccines as well. And so how do we think about kind of the seasonality of that business? Again, I know you're not providing updated guidance, but just thinking about kind of the things that matter as we think about kind of the tail end of the year. Yeah. yeah But then the other question is your business does distribute vaccines as well. but then the other question is your business does distribute vaccines as well And so how do we think about kind of the seasonality of that business? and so how do we think about kind of the seasonality of that business Again, I know you're not providing updated guidance, but just thinking about kind of the things that matter as we think about kind of the tail end of the year. again i know you're not providing updated guidance but just thinking about kind of the things that matter as we think about kind of the tail end of the year

Speaker 5: Let me say that the things that matter, in our opinion, is the overall trend that continues to see a shift of activities performed in alternative care settings instead of urgent care settings, and this trend is much more important than the seasonality. Take the ICs. More and more procedures are shifting from inpatient to outpatients, and this is a big engine of growth, and even if you take the IDNs and the independent physicians, yes, they can have some seasonality, but there are more and more activities done on chronic health or chronic diseases and preventive health, so overall, I would say that, yes, you can have inside the quarter some seasonality because of the cold and the flu season, but we remain bullish on our idea that the market for us is growing mid-single digit in these segments. Let me say that the things that matter, in our opinion, is the overall trend that continues to see a shift of activities performed in alternative care settings instead of urgent care settings, and this trend is much more important than the seasonality. let me say that the things that matter in our opinion is the overall trend that continues to see a shift of activities performed in alternative care settings instead of urgent care settings and this trend is much more important than the seasonality Take the ICs. take the ics More and more procedures are shifting from inpatient to outpatients, and this is a big engine of growth, and even if you take the IDNs and the independent physicians, yes, they can have some seasonality, but there are more and more activities done on chronic health or chronic diseases and preventive health, so overall, I would say that, yes, you can have inside the quarter some seasonality because of the cold and the flu season, but we remain bullish on our idea that the market for us is growing mid-single digit in these segments. more and more procedures are shifting from inpatient to outpatients and this is a big engine of growth and even if you take the idns and the independent physicians yes they can have some seasonality but there are more and more activities done on chronic health or chronic diseases and preventive health so overall i would say that yes you can have inside the quarter some seasonality because of the cold and the flu season but we remain bullish on our idea that the market for us is growing mid-single digit in these segments

Speaker 3: Okay. And maybe quickly touch on technology because I want to keep us kind of cognizant of time here. Incremental margins have been incredibly strong. I would imagine some of that is your SaaS transition that has been going on. How much of what we've seen kind of from the operating profit line is conversion versus addition, right? Like adding new platforms, new people, versus just flipping people over to kind of more like asset-weighted model? Okay. okay And maybe quickly touch on technology because I want to keep us kind of cognizant of time here. and maybe quickly touch on technology because i want to keep us kind of cognizant of time here Incremental margins have been incredibly strong. incremental margins have been incredibly strong I would imagine some of that is your SaaS transition that has been going on. i would imagine some of that is your saas transition that has been going on How much of what we've seen kind of from the operating profit line is conversion versus addition, right? how much of what we've seen kind of from the operating profit line is conversion versus addition right Like adding new platforms, new people, versus just flipping people over to kind of more like asset-weighted model? like adding new platforms new people versus just flipping people over to kind of more like asset-weighted model

Speaker 5: First of all, SaaS for us is still. We are still at the beginning of the journey. We have roughly 10% of our customer base on the cloud and on subscription models. So we have a huge opportunity in front of us. Normally, the SaaS customers are new customers. Of course, there is a component of conversion, but normally are new customers. First of all, SaaS for us is still. first of all saas for us is still We are still at the beginning of the journey. we are still at the beginning of the journey We have roughly 10% of our customer base on the cloud and on subscription models. we have roughly 10% of our customer base on the cloud and on subscription models So we have a huge opportunity in front of us. so we have a huge opportunity in front of us Normally, the SaaS customers are new customers. normally the saas customers are new customers Of course, there is a component of conversion, but normally are new customers. of course there is a component of conversion but normally are new customers

Speaker 3: Am I right to think that the DSOs and kind of your multi-sites are much more interested in kind of your cloud offering than? Am I right to think that the DSOs and kind of your multi-sites are much more interested in kind of your cloud offering than? am i right to think that the dsos and kind of your multi-sites are much more interested in kind of your cloud offering than

Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. We are working with a couple of big DSOs on a cloud project. Not all. Some are on the on-prem, but yeah, they are interested. Of course, they understand the value of having a cloud solution. And this is an area of focus, of course. Yeah, absolutely. yeah absolutely We are working with a couple of big DSOs on a cloud project. we are working with a couple of big dsos on a cloud project Not all. not all Some are on the on-prem, but yeah, they are interested. some are on the on-prem but yeah they are interested Of course, they understand the value of having a cloud solution. of course they understand the value of having a cloud solution And this is an area of focus, of course. and this is an area of focus of course

Speaker 3: Of course. And then maybe just generally, with the DSOs, competitive intensity, bids, RFP cycle, is there anything changing with what they're looking for as you maybe discuss with them renew contracts? I'm not asking for contract updates, but just generally, the things that they're interested in adding or having, has that changed or evolved over time? Or is it kind of the same competitive intensity that you've seen over the past few years? Of course. of course And then maybe just generally, with the DSOs, competitive intensity, bids, RFP cycle, is there anything changing with what they're looking for as you maybe discuss with them renew contracts? and then maybe just generally with the dsos competitive intensity bids rfp cycle is there anything changing with what they're looking for as you maybe discuss with them renew contracts I'm not asking for contract updates, but just generally, the things that they're interested in adding or having, has that changed or evolved over time? i'm not asking for contract updates but just generally the things that they're interested in adding or having has that changed or evolved over time Or is it kind of the same competitive intensity that you've seen over the past few years? or is it kind of the same competitive intensity that you've seen over the past few years

Speaker 5: I mean, they always negotiate that, for sure. They are good in this. But no, we see, especially the good DSOs, they are more and more interested to find solutions or opportunities to increase their revenue. I mean, when we started to present the AI solution, there were a lot of interest from DSOs, and there are. There is a lot of interest from DSOs because of the opportunity to increase the customer experience, but also increase the efficiency of their practices. A product like Curaden is a product that found a lot of interest on the DSOs. So when we have innovation, we have solutions, and this is an area where, yeah, we see more and more conversation with the DSOs. I mean, they always negotiate that, for sure. i mean they always negotiate that for sure They are good in this. they are good in this But no, we see, especially the good DSOs, they are more and more interested to find solutions or opportunities to increase their revenue. but no we see especially the good dsos they are more and more interested to find solutions or opportunities to increase their revenue I mean, when we started to present the AI solution, there were a lot of interest from DSOs, and there are. i mean when we started to present the ai solution there were a lot of interest from dsos and there are there is There is a lot of interest from DSOs because of the opportunity to increase the customer experience, but also increase the efficiency of their practices. there is a lot of interest from dsos because of the opportunity to increase the customer experience but also increase the efficiency of their practices A product like Curaden is a product that found a lot of interest on the DSOs. a product like curaden is a product that found a lot of interest on the dsos So when we have innovation, we have solutions, and this is an area where, yeah, we see more and more conversation with the DSOs. so when we have innovation we have solutions and this is an area where yeah we see more and more conversation with the dsos

Speaker 3: On the technology side, when I think about additive offerings, I think I was at the New York meetings, and you were demonstrating some kind of new tools that have been added. What more do you think? Do you have a full suite at this point? Are there new things that you're looking to add to your technology offering? What is the other holes there? On the technology side, when I think about additive offerings, I think I was at the New York meetings, and you were demonstrating some kind of new tools that have been added. on the technology side when i think about additive offerings i think i was at the new york meetings and you were demonstrating some kind of new tools that have been added What more do you think? what more do you think Do you have a full suite at this point? do you have a full suite at this point Are there new things that you're looking to add to your technology offering? are there new things that you're looking to add to your technology offering What is the other holes there? what is the other holes there

Speaker 5: This is an area we love, I love, and we accelerate the pace of innovation in our technology company, and there is much more that will come. The area of, first of all, we focus on what we call one platform, so more and more integrated solutions that help the workflow in the clinic, both on the clinical side and on the management side. The main area of focus is revenue cycle management. That is a huge topic for our customers. The clinical workflow with the AI, efficiency of the practitioner with a solution like Scribe. We announced at the New York meeting our partnership with Amazon Web Services to develop some AI solutions that are voice-based, so we will have a lot of new solutions coming also this year. This is an area we love, I love, and we accelerate the pace of innovation in our technology company, and there is much more that will come. this is an area we love i love and we accelerate the pace of innovation in our technology company and there is much more that will come The area of, first of all, we focus on what we call one platform, so more and more integrated solutions that help the workflow in the clinic, both on the clinical side and on the management side. the area of first of all we focus on what we call one platform so more and more integrated solutions that help the workflow in the clinic both on the clinical side and on the management side The main area of focus is revenue cycle management. the main area of focus is revenue cycle management That is a huge topic for our customers. that is a huge topic for our customers The clinical workflow with the AI, efficiency of the practitioner with a solution like Scribe. the clinical workflow with the ai efficiency of the practitioner with a solution like scribe We announced at the New York meeting our partnership with Amazon Web Services to develop some AI solutions that are voice-based, so we will have a lot of new solutions coming also this year. we announced at the new york meeting our partnership with amazon web services to develop some ai solutions that are voice-based so we will have a lot of new solutions coming also this year

Speaker 3: And maybe this is a perfect time to pivot to Ron and think about build versus buy. And you guys have had a bit of a bias towards share repurchase over the last couple of quarters. How are you thinking about capital deployment right now and kind of the attractiveness of either talking M&A, maybe some NCI buy-downs that you've done in the past versus going out and inorganically adding something to one of your offerings? And maybe this is a perfect time to pivot to Ron and think about build versus buy. and maybe this is a perfect time to pivot to ron and think about build versus buy And you guys have had a bit of a bias towards share repurchase over the last couple of quarters. and you guys have had a bit of a bias towards share repurchase over the last couple of quarters How are you thinking about capital deployment right now and kind of the attractiveness of either talking M&A, maybe some NCI buy-downs that you've done in the past versus going out and inorganically adding something to one of your offerings? how are you thinking about capital deployment right now and kind of the attractiveness of either talking m&a maybe some nci buy-downs that you've done in the past versus going out and inorganically adding something to one of your offerings

Speaker 4: Yeah. In terms of M&A, there's always something in the pipeline that we're evaluating where our focus has been more in the high-growth, high-margin areas of the business. Tom mentioned a couple of the implant acquisitions we've done within the last several years, but we've also been investing more on the home solution side in medical. We do find that to be an area of accelerated growth versus, say, core medical, and it's also an area of our business that gets better margins than our core medical, and so we find that to be a very attractive area for M&A investment for us, and it's not restricted just to that. Yeah. yeah In terms of M&A, there's always something in the pipeline that we're evaluating where our focus has been more in the high-growth, high-margin areas of the business. in terms of m&a there's always something in the pipeline that we're evaluating where our focus has been more in the high-growth high-margin areas of the business Tom mentioned a couple of the implant acquisitions we've done within the last several years, but we've also been investing more on the home solution side in medical. tom mentioned a couple of the implant acquisitions we've done within the last several years but we've also been investing more on the home solution side in medical We do find that to be an area of accelerated growth versus, say, core medical, and it's also an area of our business that gets better margins than our core medical, and so we find that to be a very attractive area for M&A investment for us, and it's not restricted just to that. we do find that to be an area of accelerated growth versus say core medical and it's also an area of our business that gets better margins than our core medical and so we find that to be a very attractive area for m&a investment for us and it's not restricted just to that We are looking at, on the technology side, if we see an opportunity to buy something. We just recently kind of folded in an imaging system process that was somebody who we had a very close relationship with, but now we've kind of captured that. And it's an integral part of the offering. And along the way, we just have to make that decision. In some cases, the solution is not available out there. It's something we may have to build ourselves on the technology side. And then there's other areas where if we feel like we can strengthen ourselves in a certain geography or by getting access to a product like we've done in some of Tom's areas to broaden a product portfolio like we've done with our implant business, that's really going to be the focus. We are looking at, on the technology side, if we see an opportunity to buy something. we are looking at on the technology side if we see an opportunity to buy something We just recently kind of folded in an imaging system process that was somebody who we had a very close relationship with, but now we've kind of captured that. we just recently kind of folded in an imaging system process that was somebody who we had a very close relationship with but now we've kind of captured that And it's an integral part of the offering. and it's an integral part of the offering And along the way, we just have to make that decision. and along the way we just have to make that decision In some cases, the solution is not available out there. in some cases the solution is not available out there It's something we may have to build ourselves on the technology side. it's something we may have to build ourselves on the technology side And then there's other areas where if we feel like we can strengthen ourselves in a certain geography or by getting access to a product like we've done in some of Tom's areas to broaden a product portfolio like we've done with our implant business, that's really going to be the focus. and then there's other areas where if we feel like we can strengthen ourselves in a certain geography or by getting access to a product like we've done in some of tom's areas to broaden a product portfolio like we've done with our implant business that's really going to be the focus Outside of that, we still think that we've been pretty aggressive in terms of what we've done with share repurchases. We think it's very accretive for us right now. We think it does provide a good return to our shareholders. And as long as we can generate the positive cash flow that we've been able to do, we'll continue to be aggressive there as well. Outside of that, we still think that we've been pretty aggressive in terms of what we've done with share repurchases. outside of that we still think that we've been pretty aggressive in terms of what we've done with share repurchases We think it's very accretive for us right now. we think it's very accretive for us right now We think it does provide a good return to our shareholders. we think it does provide a good return to our shareholders And as long as we can generate the positive cash flow that we've been able to do, we'll continue to be aggressive there as well. and as long as we can generate the positive cash flow that we've been able to do we'll continue to be aggressive there as well

Speaker 3: Great. And then maybe just one last one before I have my traditional ending question. You've hired from other dental distributors recently, kind of added sales force. You've also launched your e-commerce platform. So I think that there are two factors there: adding headcount, improving efficiency via the e-commerce platform. Entering '26, thinking about your sales force, is it where you need it to be? Is it something that you can just scale pretty easily because you have all these new tools? How do we think about the dental sales force and how that translates to incremental growth going forward? Great. great And then maybe just one last one before I have my traditional ending question. and then maybe just one last one before i have my traditional ending question You've hired from other dental distributors recently, kind of added sales force. you've hired from other dental distributors recently kind of added sales force You've also launched your e-commerce platform. you've also launched your e-commerce platform So I think that there are two factors there: adding headcount, improving efficiency via the e-commerce platform. so i think that there are two factors there adding headcount improving efficiency via the e-commerce platform Entering '26, thinking about your sales force, is it where you need it to be? entering '26 thinking about your sales force is it where you need it to be Is it something that you can just scale pretty easily because you have all these new tools? is it something that you can just scale pretty easily because you have all these new tools How do we think about the dental sales force and how that translates to incremental growth going forward? how do we think about the dental sales force and how that translates to incremental growth going forward

Speaker 5: So we will continue to add sales force as we have done in 2025 in a very focused way based on territories where we may benefit from more coverage or based on quality of people. But you're right. In 2025, we were able to attract a lot of salespeople from competition. We added salespeople on the field. We added salespeople on the phone, and we invested in our digital platform. So all this is part of our strategy, and all this will support our growth. I'm not talking about percentage because I don't believe we provided guidance yet, but all this is what makes us positive for our growth. So we will continue to add sales force as we have done in 2025 in a very focused way based on territories where we may benefit from more coverage or based on quality of people. so we will continue to add sales force as we have done in 2025 in a very focused way based on territories where we may benefit from more coverage or based on quality of people But you're right. but you're right In 2025, we were able to attract a lot of salespeople from competition. in 2025 we were able to attract a lot of salespeople from competition We added salespeople on the field. we added salespeople on the field We added salespeople on the phone, and we invested in our digital platform. we added salespeople on the phone and we invested in our digital platform So all this is part of our strategy, and all this will support our growth. so all this is part of our strategy and all this will support our growth I'm not talking about percentage because I don't believe we provided guidance yet, but all this is what makes us positive for our growth. i'm not talking about percentage because i don't believe we provided guidance yet but all this is what makes us positive for our growth

Speaker 3: Our team generally ends all of these firesides with the same question, which is, what do you think investors are going to appreciate about Henry Schein in about 12 months when you're sitting here again that they don't appreciate right now? Our team generally ends all of these firesides with the same question, which is, what do you think investors are going to appreciate about Henry Schein in about 12 months when you're sitting here again that they don't appreciate right now? our team generally ends all of these firesides with the same question which is what do you think investors are going to appreciate about henry schein in about 12 months when you're sitting here again that they don't appreciate right now

Speaker 5: It's on the screen. It's on the screen. it's on the screen

Speaker 3: The investment merits? The investment merits? the investment merits

Speaker 5: Are we waiting for that question? Look, we have a clear strategy. We're not going to go through it now. BOLD+1 is very clear. We're making progress in each of those areas. When we say we're going to do something, we do it. We have a pretty good track record. Cyber, in between, of course, distracted us a bit. The dental market is a good market. It's a steady market. It's growing. We need some more dentists in the developed world. We're helping grow dental school admissions, graduations, but if we can drive efficiency, there will be more outcome. The platform is endless in dental and in medical. There's so much we can add. We want more share of our customers' wallets. The L in the BOLD+1, the leveraging, and we have a pretty experienced management team, which I went through. Are we waiting for that question? are we waiting for that question Look, we have a clear strategy. look we have a clear strategy We're not going to go through it now. we're not going to go through it now BOLD+1 is very clear. bold+1 is very clear We're making progress in each of those areas. we're making progress in each of those areas When we say we're going to do something, we do it. when we say we're going to do something we do it We have a pretty good track record. we have a pretty good track record Cyber, in between, of course, distracted us a bit. cyber in between of course distracted us a bit The dental market is a good market. the dental market is a good market It's a steady market. it's a steady market It's growing. it's growing We need some more dentists in the developed world. we need some more dentists in the developed world We're helping grow dental school admissions, graduations, but if we can drive efficiency, there will be more outcome. we're helping grow dental school admissions graduations but if we can drive efficiency there will be more outcome The platform is endless in dental and in medical. the platform is endless in dental and in medical There's so much we can add. there's so much we can add We want more share of our customers' wallets. we want more share of our customers' wallets The L in the BOLD+1, the leveraging, and we have a pretty experienced management team, which I went through. the l in the bold+1 the leveraging and we have a pretty experienced management team which i went through The team is very, very enthusiastic. I can tell you that. So, John, thank you for. The team is very, very enthusiastic. the team is very very enthusiastic I can tell you that. i can tell you that So, John, thank you for. so john thank you for

Speaker 3: No, thank you. No, thank you. no thank you

Speaker 5: Hosting us. It's been great to be part of this journey you've been on. Hosting us. hosting us It's been great to be part of this journey you've been on. it's been great to be part of this journey you've been on

Speaker 3: Thank you all for coming. We're just exactly at time. Thank you all for coming. thank you all for coming We're just exactly at time. we're just exactly at time