02-04-2015, 01:39 PM
Quote:Geoffrey Porges - Sanford Bernstein
Many items to ask questions about, but first and could you just quickly give us a comment on your intentions with the dividend is this something that we should expect you to continue to grow in the future or is it sort of static as it is? And secondly, is your guidance assuming 250,000 patients treated and a greater than 40% gross to net or is it assuming something different to that? Thanks very much.
Robin Washington - EVP and CFO
Hi Geoff, it's Robin, I’ll answer the first part of the question and I’ll turn the second part over to Paul. It is our intention to grow the dividend overtime, but I would say at the moment we still use share repurchases as the component that would be the larger percentage of our share return strategy, it will be larger than dividends for the foreseeable future.
Quote:Cory Kasimov
I'll get off with the HCV market dynamic questions for a minute and go back to the dividend. So I don’t think many people are expecting you to start paying one just yet. I am curious have anything changed with your thinking on this front and does this imply anything about the acquisition opportunities that you currently see in this market? Thanks.
Robin Washington - EVP and CFO
Hi Cory not at all this is Robin and may be John will chime in as well. But no really the timing of our dividend really reflects a confidence that we have in our business and our robust balance sheet as well as just the strength of our future cash flow as we look at it and again as we said all along there are no so vehicles that we can use to return free cash flow this gives us a disciplined approach of having a portion of it regular and something that people can count on or bake into their models and the rest will allow us to be flexible. But also as I mentioned it doesn’t in anyway prevent us from invested in our business our pipeline or M&A it be between our free cash flows as well as our access to borrowing capacity we don’t feel constrained in anyway by issuing a dividend.
Quote:Terence Flynn - Goldman Sachs
Just wondering if you guys have, thought about a target payout ratio with respect to buybacks and dividends overtime? And then second question is just regarding, you gave us some pretty detailed data on U.S. capacity, but what about EU capacity, any color there long-term? Thanks.
Robin Washington - EVP and CFO
Hi Terence, I’ll start with the first part. We don’t really want to set a target, again as I mentioned earlier our focus will still be primarily share repurchases for shareholder returns and that’s the level and aggressiveness with which we do them will really be based on how we feel about our evaluations. If you look over the past several years, we returned about 50 a little over 50% of our free cash flow and based on our evaluation, I mean that’s an area that we’re comfortable with, but we reserve the right to ratchet that down overtime I think particularly as you think about a dividend for the second half you’d expect us lower share repurchases a bit.