Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the Q1 2016 DeVry Education Group results conference call and webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Joan Walter, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Ms. Walter, the floor is yours, ma'am. Joan Walter - Senior Director-Investor & Media Relations: Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. With me today from DeVry' Education Group's leadership team are Daniel Hamburger, President and Chief Executive Officer; Tim Wiggins, our Chief Financial Officer and Pat Unzicker, our Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer. I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of DeVry Education Group that involves risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied. These factors are discussed in our quarterly reports and Form 10-K for fiscal 2015 filed with the SEC and available on our website. DeVry Education Group disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Additionally during the call, we may refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute, for our most directly comparable GAAP measures. Our press release, which contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today as well as a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is also available on our website. Telephone and webcast replays of today's call are available until November 12. To access the replays, please refer to today's release for more information. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Daniel. Daniel M. Hamburger - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Joan. And thank you all very much for joining us today. Before I get into the results for our first quarter, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who attended our recent Investor Day here in Chicago. We had really strong attendance with 110 people participating either in person or on the webcast. We appreciate your time and interest and I really hope that you came away from the meeting with a greater understanding of our five-year strategy and why we're so confident in the value creation potential we see. If you were unable to join us, please visit our website as we posted the slides from the presentation as well as the transcript and a video webcast, so you can really get a sense of what we covered. We conducted a survey to collect feedback on the meeting and received a very high response rate, so thank you again to everyone who participated. We were encouraged to see that 81% of you felt that our strategic direction was clear and well defined. Of course, our strategy is quality plus diversification plus long-term focus. Continued growth in both our Medical and Healthcare and our Professional and International segments, combined with stabilization and very modest growth expectations for DeVry University, we think should generate solid future growth and leverage. And so from fiscal 2016 to 2020, we believe we can achieve organic revenue growth in the 5% to 7% range and EBITDA growth in the 10% to 12% range. The successful execution of this plan will provide the capital we need to do even more. And specifically four things: Support our academic quality initiatives, invest in our existing growth institutions, continue our strong track record of creating value via diversifying acquisitions, and to fund dividends and share repurchases. We're confident in our strategy as it's aligned to the growth opportunities in education globally. There's a growing global talent shortage, a skills gap. Employers tell us they can't find enough qualified nurses, doctors, engineers, accountants. DeVry Group institutions are well positioned to serve this array of needs, given our scale and our scope. Whether it's business and technology careers, healthcare or professional education in the U.S. or globally, we're positioned toward the areas of greatest workforce need. Our institutions have strong brand reputations, based on quality academic outcomes and exceptional service to students. And we have the capabilities, strong talent, and a unique culture that enable us to execute on the opportunities. So our strategy of quality plus diversification, plus long-term focus, differentiates DeVry Group as an organization. And our culture of care enables us to execute our strategy even more effectively. That's why I think it's critical for shareholders to understand that our culture of care is a palpable differentiator for us, for our students, and also for attracting and retaining the professors and other colleagues who share our values. Fundamentally, DeVry Group's culture of care is about our collective passion and focus on achieving the best outcomes for our students. It's the glue that binds our colleagues together, reinforces our strong reputation, and helps us attract strong talent. When an organization has a great culture, you can feel it. And we hope the strength of our culture was evident to you at our Investor Day. So now let me review our first quarter results, which were in line with our expectations. Total revenue came in at $441 million. That was a decline of 4.5%. And as a reminder, the revenue decline was primarily the result of our strategy to purposefully reset DeVry University by narrowing its footprint and bolstering the value proposition. And the decline was partially offset by continued strong growth at both our Medical and Healthcare and our International and Professional segments. Further, enrollments were in line with the preliminary outlook that we provided in September. Reviewing our segments, let's start with our largest one, Medical and Healthcare. We believe we can grow segment revenue at a 7% to 8% CAGR through 2020. At the midpoint of that goal, this segment would deliver roughly $1.3 billion in revenue in 2020. As these institutions mature in scale, we would expect to be able to achieve greater efficiencies and drive EBITDA growth a little bit higher than revenue growth; EBITDA growth of 9% to 11% over the timeframe. One of the drivers is growth at Chamberlain College of Nursing, including both campus-based pre-licensure and online post-licensure programs. Our plan is to achieve compound annual growth of 9% to 11% in revenue and 8% to 9% in EBITDA through 2020. This quarter saw a continuation of our growing enrollments and increasing market share, even in the face of competition. Chamberlain's brand reputation, based on Chamberlain Care, continues to expand, and that's helped us drive record enrollment for our RN to BSN program this past session. We're confident that the supply-demand imbalance will continue driving growth. In our Investor Day survey, almost 90% of you agreed that demand for nursing education will continue to remain strong for the foreseeable future. As part of executing Chamberlain's five-year strategy, we'll continue to open one to two campuses per year. We're on target to open three campuses in fiscal 2016. The first of those opened in the Dallas area in September, with enrollments that exceeded plan. The Charlotte campus is recruiting students for the January session. Moving on to DeVry Medical International, or DMI. Our five-year strategic plan is targeting to deliver compound annual revenue growth of 3% to 5% and 7% to 9% in EBITDA through 2020. Key drivers include our focus on academic quality, a long-term enrollment growth trend in the low single digits, modest tuition increases, and moderating capital investment. This semester was clearly well above trend and one of our strongest September classes ever with new students up almost 18%. In fact, American University of the Caribbean had the largest class for any semester in its history and a record number of applications. The new brand-building efforts we discussed at our Investor Day are working. But, part of the semester's growth was probably making up for lost time from our past operational issues and, again, long-term trend is low single digits. Our strategy of academic quality is the key driver here. Our med and vet schools continue to deliver outstanding board scores, residency matches, and employment outcomes. Part of our academic quality strategy is building a strong clinical network. A good illustration is, this quarter, both AUC and Ross Med signed affiliation agreements with Western Connecticut Healthcare System to secure additional clinical spots for our students. We're leveraging the strong reputation of our two medical schools to secure high-quality clinicals for our students. At Carrington, we think we can drive compound annual revenue growth of 6% to 8% and 33% to 35% in EBITDA by 2020. This will be supported by new online offerings, such as our Medical Billing and Coding and Medical Administrative Assistant Certificate Programs. With smaller class sizes and very high-touch service, Carrington is in a strong competitive position. Carrington adds additional long-term value to DeVry Group because it serves as a platform for a ladder of learning for graduates to go on to DeVry University and Chamberlain. International and Professional Education, as we outlined last month, will be our fastest growing segment as we look towards 2020. We're projecting 9% to 12% organic revenue growth and 13% to 17% EBITDA growth. At the midpoint of this, it would be $450 million of revenue. This will be primarily supported by the continued growth of our platform in Brazil and by the successful leverage of our leadership position at Becker into new markets beyond accounting. For DeVry Brasil, we project compound annual revenue growth of 11% to 13% and 20% to 24% in EBITDA through 2020. This outlook is supported by an expanding middle class and public policies focused on leveraging education as a primary tool to grow the economy and to raise living standards in Brazil. There's a growing population and a growing college participation rate. So, all these trends give us confidence in the long-term opportunity. We see lower asset prices potentially as opportunities to continue to deploy growth capital in Brazil. Our strong culture enables us to effectively execute our strategy and DeVry Brasil is a perfect case in point. We've completed eight acquisitions in Brazil with an average expected return of greater than 20%. We have a proven acquisition integration playbook where we bring in our academic and curriculum system, our IT and our HR processes, then we introduce our culture of care, which is key to creating a greater focus on students and academic outcomes. Our culture of care is what's allowed us to successfully integrate these organizations and expand their academic offerings. Some of you have asked for more clarity around what's happening with the FIES student loan system in Brazil. Well, FIES contracts are being prioritized towards the north and northeast regions, the institutions with high academic quality and to programs in healthcare and engineering. All three of these priorities line up with the focus of DeVry Brasil. So while the number of FIES contracts may decline, we believe we'll increase our share of those contracts, perhaps even achieving the same level as before. This quarter, we were prepared for a pullback given the economic environment in the region and weakness reported by some other providers in Brazil. However, on a same-campus basis, new enrollments were down much less than some may have feared and total enrollments were actually up almost 6%. The team did a very good job of attracting self-pay students and managing the FIES shifts. Looking ahead, we'll continue to leverage our high-quality reputation to expand programs across our national network of locations and to capitalize on programmatic growth opportunities, particularly in healthcare, engineering and IT. Moving to Becker. Becker has a great brand, strong margins, a low CapEx profile and has been a solid performer for quite some time. In addition to being a strong performer in its own right, Becker is a platform for our non-Title 4 expansion. We think we can drive compound annual revenue growth of 7% to 9% and then 8% to 10% in EBITDA at Becker through 2020. The drivers include increasing scale in our growth areas of continuing professional education, global accounting and healthcare as well as continuing medical education and other lifelong learning avenues where we can apply the Becker model. Becker started the year out well, as our CPA and our continuing professional education or CPE programs are off to a strong start. CPA volume trends exceeded expectations and Becker revenue grew nearly 7% year-over-year. Now let's move to our Business, Technology and Management segment, DeVry University and its Keller Graduate School of Management. Here, our plan is to deliver 1% to 2% compound annual revenue growth and EBITDA growth of 10% to 12% through 2020. Achieving a midpoint here would mean $675 million of revenue growth for the segment. As we move through the transition, revenue is expected to decline here in fiscal 2016 and 2017 before stabilizing and growing modestly in the rest of the planning horizon out to 2020. Our planning consists of a set of near-term actions to stabilize enrollments and maintain positive economics as well as longer-term actions to differentiate the university and transform it to better compete in a more competitive landscape. With the near-term actions, we successfully reduced our campus footprint and costs in line with our revenue decline. I want to focus here on how we're transforming and differentiating the university to compete more effectively. Although college enrollments are down across the United States, especially among the older students that DeVry University tends to serve, we know we can do better. We strongly believe that we can stabilize and return to modest growth, leveraging our brand reputation, our campus and online system and our strong team who is delivering DeVry University care for our students. The team has studied our students' needs and we know what our students want. They want careers, care, and speed and flexibility. Our transformation strategy is the right strategy as it responds to these student needs. There are many elements of the strategy, but let me summarize them here in three areas: career-oriented programs with high academic quality, affordability, and strategic marketing. So, first, we're getting much better aligned with programs where there are strong career outcomes, skills gaps and supply-demand imbalances. Examples of this are in Cyber Security, where we now have five program offerings, and our new Medical Billing and Coding Program, which has enrolled more than 1,200 new students since launching just in May. We're also embedding certifications into the program, such as Cisco into key programs in order to enhance value for students and employers. This programmatic focus is both about what we offer and how we offer it. And that's with the care and support we provide to students. Responding to our students' need for schedule flexibility, our vision is to transform from a university with multiple locations to managing as if we were one giant campus with an integrated scheduling system across Video Connected Classrooms. Not only will this approach better provide students the course they want when they want it, it will also improve our utilization. This quarter, our integrated scheduling system helped us increase our campus class size by approximately 15%, while maintaining and enhancing a quality classroom experience. The second element of DeVry University's transformation is focused on pricing affordability. It's really perceived affordability because we're finding ways to better communicate the affordability that we have of a DeVry University degree. So, it better resonates with prospective students and their families. There are multiple levers that we're pulling. We'll be shortening program lengths, increasing scholarships, reducing prices in some cases, and offering stackable degrees. We continue to pilot other creative paths to systematically build on our affordability programs. We expect to have more to report here in the next quarter or two. And the third element of our transformation is strategic marketing. This is the confluence of local marketing and program-specific marketing, all supported by a strong DeVry University brand. While we've reduced our overall marketing budget, we've increased our investment in each of our local – our focused local markets, to better prioritize our advertising spend. For example, our Columbus, Ohio campus was our first market for increased investment at the local level and it's using traditional channels and with an emphasis on digital media. Our messaging has been focused on our technology programs, an area that's a competitive advantage for us, especially in Columbus, with our 80-year history there. The result? Columbus had 8.4% new student growth in September. And November's trending higher there as well. Now in terms of first quarter results, overall, DeVry University enrollments were in line with our expectations. We expected September's rate of decline to be worse than July because of the impact of narrowing our campus footprint and the shift in our marketing strategy. For the September session, undergraduate new and total student enrollments declined 24% and 20%, respectively, compared to last year. Now, on a same-campus basis, the decline was narrower. New enrollments on a same-campus basis for undergrads declined 16%. For graduate course takers, we declined about 17%, but, again, here on a same-campus basis, graduate course takers were down 12.9%. So, to sum up, at DeVry University, we know that our students are looking for careers, care and speed and flexibility. I'm confident in our turnaround and transformation strategy, because it responds to those needs. More importantly, I'm confident in the team that's executing the strategy. And I'll look forward to providing you with progress updates over the next few quarters. So, with that, I'd really like to turn it over to Tim Wiggins. Timothy J. Wiggins - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Daniel, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start with overall financial results, then go through the reporting segments. In the first quarter of fiscal 2016, total revenue declined 4.5% to $441 million. The decrease was driven by the planned decline in enrollment at DeVry University, as we reposition it for growth. The declines were partially offset by growth in our Medical and Healthcare and International and Professional Education segments. We continue to focus on expense control. Total costs, excluding special charges, for the first quarter were $409 million, down 3.5% from the prior year. Net income, excluding special items, was $24 million during the first quarter, which resulted in earnings per share, excluding special items, of $0.38. Our effective income tax rate was 10.9% for the first quarter. Excluding special charges, our rate was 19%. With that overview, let's now shift to our operating segment results. Starting with the Medical and Healthcare segment, revenue of $224 million was up almost 9% during the first quarter. Segment revenue growth was driven by Chamberlain. Operating income, excluding special items for the segment was $35 million, representing a decrease of 9.6% from the prior year, due primarily as a result of higher home office cost allocations supporting growth and expenses incurred as a result of Tropical Storm Erika. Chamberlain revenue grew 22% for the quarter. In September, we continued to grow our market share. New student enrollment grew 28% and total students grew 23%, driven by strong demand for our post-licensure programs, including the Family Nurse Practitioner and RN to BSN programs. In addition, new campus openings contributed to Chamberlain's enrollment growth. At DMI, revenue of $82.8 million grew a half a percent versus last year. While Tropical Storm Erika did not inflict any significant physical damage on our campus, we did incur extra costs to reroute and temporarily lodge many of our students to keep them on schedule to begin their studies. In total, we incurred roughly $1 million of expense this period as a result. At Carrington, revenue decreased approximately 2% during the quarter. In the quarter, new students decreased 1.5% and total students decreased by 1% compared to last year. The decline was the result of lower enrollments in two programs in several markets. We expect both enrollment and revenue growth to return in the second quarter. Turning to the International and Professional Education segment, revenue of $59 million increased 10.3% in the quarter. The decline of the Brazilian real as compared to the U.S. dollar reduced reported revenues by almost $20 million. Without this currency effect, revenue for our International and Professional Education segment would have grown 47%. The segment operating income, excluding special items, was $2 million during the quarter, down $2.7 million, reflecting increased investments in curriculum development at Becker and currency impact. At Becker, revenue increased 7% during the quarter. This reflects continued positive momentum in the number of CPA exam-takers, building on the momentum from last quarter, solid growth in Accounting and continuing professional education, as well as continued growth in U.S. MLE program enrollments. Revenue at DeVry Brasil increased 13% in the quarter, driven by the acquisitions of FMF, Faci and Damásio. New student enrollment growth increased 176% compared to last year, including the impact of these acquisitions, while total student enrollments increased 72%. Excluding the results of FMF, Faci and Damásio, same-campus total enrollment at DeVry Brasil increased 6%. Within the Business, Technology and Management segment, revenue was down 22% to $159 million during the quarter as a result of our resizing of DeVry University to reflect the current market. We've continued to make progress on reducing our cost structure and we're on track to achieve our target of at least $125 million in cost savings. The segment recorded an operating loss of $1.6 million for the quarter, excluding special items. The loss reflects lower enrollments, but 96% of the quarter's revenue decline versus the prior year was offset through our cost reduction actions. Costs declined by 21% compared to the year-ago period. The first quarter is a seasonally weaker one for DeVry University and we continue to expect to maintain positive segment economics for the year. Now, looking to the second quarter of fiscal 2016 at DeVry Group, we expect revenue to decrease about 6%. The decrease is a result of continued weakness of the Brazilian Real and declining revenue at DeVry University, which offsets revenue growth at our other institutions. We expect operating costs to be down about the same percent – percentage rate as revenue, as a result of cost reductions at DeVry University, offset somewhat by growth investments. And last, we expect effective tax rate to be in the 20% range, excluding special items. I'll now turn the call over to Pat to talk more about our balance sheet and financial position. Pat? Patrick J. Unzicker - Treasurer, Chief Accounting Officer & VP: Well, thank you, Tim, and good afternoon, everyone. Our cash flow from operations for the quarter was $117 million. Our cash and cash equivalents were $436 million at September 30, down from $473 million last year, primarily driven by capital deployed for acquisitions. Our net accounts receivable balance was $186 million, up 9% from the prior year, primarily due to the impact of extended FIES payments at DeVry Brasil. Our bad debt expense as a percentage of revenue is one of the lowest in the industry at 2.1% versus 2.6% last year. Capital spending for the quarter was $23 million compared to $21 million last year. We continue to invest capital for the long term in infrastructure to support our quality and diversification strategies. We're targeting to keep our capital spending for fiscal year 2016 to be about flat, roughly in the range of $90 million. Now, we continued our cost reduction efforts during the first quarter, resulting in a $24 million pre-tax restructuring charge related to real estate optimization and workforce reductions, primarily at DeVry University. We expect to incur additional restructuring charges in fiscal year 2016 as we continue to execute our transformation strategy for DeVry University. Also during the quarter, we returned approximately $8 million to shareholders through share repurchases. We repurchased 292,000 shares during the first quarter at an average purchase price of $28.32 per share. This repurchase activity represents a 32% increase over the fourth quarter, which followed a 20% increase over the third quarter. We are confident that our strong financial position and cash flow generation give us the flexibility to support our strategy. Now let me turn the call back over to Daniel. Daniel M. Hamburger - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Pat. Well, to wrap up, continued growth in both our Medical and Healthcare and Professional and International segments, combined with stabilization and very modest growth expectations for DeVry University, should generate solid future growth and leverage. DeVry Education Group's strategy of quality, plus diversification, plus long-term focus, coupled with our strong culture, continues to differentiate us in a tough environment. We're confident that by executing the plan we outlined at our Investor Day that we'll deliver positive student outcomes, attractive growth and significant value creation. And so with that, we're eager to take your questions. Joan? Joan Walter - Senior Director-Investor & Media Relations: That's great. So I'd like to ask, Mike, if you could please give our participants the instructions to ask a question.