Henry Schein Inc. Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-08-04 13:20:45.0

Tags: Henry Schein Inc., Call Transcript, Unit, Earnings, Credit Suisse Group AG, FICO Score, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Glen Santangelo with Credit Suisse.

Glen Santangelo - Credit Suisse

Stan, just a couple of follow-up questions to your prepared comments, you sort of suggested on the equipment side that were seeing a trade down into less expensive comparable equipment. Can you maybe give us examples of kind of what you are seeing and maybe how long you think that will persist?

Stanley Bergman

Glen, if you take it at its simplest form, the dental unit, which is the chair and the light, we are seeing a movement from the more expensive units to the less expensive units, maybe even manufactured by the same manufacturer. Likewise, we see the same on the X-ray side. The [ISI type] unit, the 3D unit is moving downwards a little bit at this time towards the 2D and towards the medium field of view.

And so, I think the unit decrease is not as bad as the dollar decrease. I might add this is primarily a U.S. phenomena and a little bit in Canada. As to when it will end, it's hard to tell. But the sense we have perhaps we reached the bottom in terms of a decrease in equipment sales percentage decrease, we see that starting to mitigate. It's hard to give you an exact number because a couple of months is not a trend. I think the equipment sales reflect the sentiment of what people think with respect to the economy in general and the news that is coming out right now seems to be a little bit better than it was nine months ago. So, I think we are sensing a positive feel on equipment market side.

Glen Santangelo - Credit Suisse

So, Stan, if I hear you correctly it's not a credit issue at all. Dentists have no problems getting credit. It's just that they are a little skittish on the economy so they are just trading down temporarily we think?

Stanley Bergman

Yeah. When you talk about credit, it's a tad harder to get credit today than perhaps it was six months ago even. But we are still getting well over 90% approvals on our credit application. The FICO scores are being focused on a little bit more, but over 90% of our customers that are seeking at least are getting pretty quick approval.

Glen Santangelo - Credit Suisse

 

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