The Cooper Companies, Inc. (COO)
Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
December 9, 2008 5:00 p.m. ET

Executives

Albert White – Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations
Robert Weiss – Chief Executive Officer
Eugene Midlock – Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Matt - BMO Capital Markets
Michael Weinstein – JPMorgan
Steven Willoughby – Cleveland Research
Jared Holt – Thomas Weisel Partners
Peter Bye – Jefferies & Company
Larry Biegelsen – Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC
Jeff Johnson – Robert W. Baird
Christopher Cooley - FTN Midwest Securities
Amit Bhalla – Citigroup

Presentation

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to The Cooper Companies fourth quarter ''08 and fiscal year ''08 earnings conference call. My name is Namesia (ph) and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We would conduct a question-and-answer session toward the end of this conference. If, at any time during the call you require assistance, please press “*0” and an operator will be happy to assist you. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Al White, Vice President. Please proceed.

Albert White

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Cooper Companies fourth quarter and full year 2008 earnings conference call. I am Al White, Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations and joining me on today’s call are Bob Weiss, Chief Executive Officer and Gene Midlock, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we get started I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including all revenue and earnings per share guidance and other statements regarding anticipated results of operations, market conditions, and planned product launches.

Forward-looking statements necessarily depend on assumptions, data, or other methods that may be incorrect or imprecise and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Events that could cause our actual results and future actions as a company to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements are set forth under the caption “Forward-Looking Statements” in today’s earnings release and are described in our SEC filings including the business section of Cooper’s Annual Report on Form 10-K. These are available publicly and on request from the company’s Investor Relations department.

Now before I turn the call over to Bob, let me comment on the agenda for the call. Bob will begin by providing some highlights on the quarter then get into specific details including new products, product launches, the market and guidance. Following Bob’s remarks Gene Midlock will comment on the fourth quarter financial results. We will then open the call for questions.

We will keep the formal presentation to roughly 30 minutes followed by 30 minutes of Q&A, so the call will last one hour in total. We request that anyone asking questions please limit yourself to one question so that we may be able to get to as many callers as possible in the allotted time. Should you have any additional questions following the call, please call our Investors Relations line at 925-460-3663, that’s 925-460-3663 and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

As a reminder, this call is being recorded and a copy of the press release is available on our website at www.coopercos.com under Investor Relations.

With that, let me turn the call over to Bob for his opening remarks.

Robert Weiss

Thank you Al, and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I think probably the real caption here is in spite of the economy, in spite of the financial crisis, and in spite of a strengthening dollar, we had a great quarter.

In keeping with our most recent tradition we’re going to stay focused on trying to deliver a 30-minute presentation and 30 minutes of Q&A, as Al indicated. The key takeaways, the key messages that I hope you walk away from this call with are as follows.

A strong fourth quarter, the market was strong in spite of a dismal October. We continue our best in class rollouts trading up patients that are out there with Proclear 1 Day, with Avaira, and with Biofinity. We grew at 1.4 times the market for the 12 months ended September 30th, which is the most recent data.