Dave Gardella
Analyst · America Merrill Lynch we have David Ridley-Lane please go ahead
Thank you, Dan and good morning, everyone. Before I discuss our third quarter operating performance in more detail, I’d like to recap a couple of significant items in this quarter that are impacting our year-over-year comparability. As we previously announced, we completed the sale of our Language Solutions business on July 22, 2018 for $77.5 million in cash. Our third quarter 2018 results include Language Solutions through the disposition date, while the third quarter of last year includes Language Solutions for the whole quarter. In addition third quarter of 2018 GAAP results include the gain on the sale of Language Solutions of $38.4 million on an after tax basis, as well as a gain on equity investment of $8.5 million both gains are excluded from our non-GAAP results that I’ll be discussing today and our organic revenue was adjusted to exclude the impact of the Language Solutions sale. On a consolidated basis net sales for the third quarter were $216.9 million, a decrease of $5.7 million or 2.6% from the third quarter of 2017, primarily due to the sale of Language Solutions. After adjusting for the sale of Language Solutions changes in foreign exchange rates and the impact of the adoption of the new revenue recognition standard, organic sales increased 5.1%, as strong capital markets transactional volume and growth in our SaaS offerings more than offset declines in capital markets compliance volume and healthcare and commercial print volume within investment markets. Adjusted for the sale of Language Solutions our total services revenue grew by $12.5 million or 10.2%, driven by double-digit growth in both capital markets transactional revenue and our SaaS revenue, which was partially offset by a $3.9 million or 4.7% decline in print based revenue. Third quarter gross margin was 38.5% or 170 basis points higher than the third quarter of 2017, primarily driven by a favorable mix between higher margin services and lower margin products revenue. Non-GAAP SG&A expense in the quarter was $52.3 million, $1.8 million higher than the third quarter of 2017. As a percentage of revenue non-GAAP SG&A was 24.1% or 140 basis points higher than the third quarter of 2017. The increase in SG&A was primarily driven by higher investment spending in support of our strategic priorities, as well as the revenue mix that continues to be more heavily weighted toward our SaaS offerings. Our third quarter non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $31.3 million, a decrease of $0.2 million from the third quarter of 2017. The sale of Language Solutions negatively impacted year-over-year EBITDA comparison by approximately $1.7 million. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter of 14.4% was 20 basis points higher than the third quarter of last year, primarily driven by the favorable mix of revenue. Turning now to our segment results, revenue in our U.S. segment was $185.5 million in the third quarter of 2018, a decrease of 0.3% from last year’s third quarter. On an organic basis after adjusting for the sale of Language Solutions and the impact of the new revenue recognition standard revenue increased 3.2%. Revenue in capital markets grew 9.3% on an organic basis, primarily due to strong transactional volume driven by continued strong market activity in IPOs and a couple of large M&A deals in the quarter. Higher transactional volume was partially offset by lower compliance revenue where we had a tough year-over-year comparison with a couple of non-recurring proxy deals in last year’s third quarter. We did however continue to see strong growth in active disclosure revenue, which grew 15.9% from the third quarter of 2017. Revenue in investment markets declined 3.6% on an organic basis, driven by secular declines in print based revenue in our healthcare and commercial offerings. The decline in print based revenue was only partially offset by growth in our fund suite arc SaaS solution. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin for the segment of 18.5% increased 80 basis points from the third quarter of 2017, primarily due to the favorable mix between services and products revenue. Revenue in our International segment was $31.4 million in the third quarter of 2018, a decrease of 14% from the third quarter of last year. On an organic basis excluding the impact of the Language Solutions disposition and unfavorable impact of changes in foreign exchange rates and the new revenue recognition standard revenue in the third quarter increased by 14.8%, driven by growth in our SaaS offerings and strong transactional volume in Asia. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin for the segment of 8.3% increased 10 basis points from the third quarter of 2017, as mix of revenue and cost savings initiatives more than offset stranded cost related to the Language Solutions sale. Our third quarter 2018 non-GAAP unallocated corporate expenses excluding depreciation and amortization were $5.6 million, an increase of $1.1 million from the third quarter of 2017, primarily driven by investment in strategic initiatives. Consolidated free cash flow in the quarter was $53.4 million, $11.7 million lower than the third quarter of 2017, primarily due to less cash generated by working capital, partially offset by lower tax and interest payments. Net proceeds from the sale of Language Solutions of approximately $60 million were used to reduce outstanding debt under our term loan. We ended the quarter with $397.2 million of total debt and $341 million of net debt, with nothing drawn on our revolver and we had net available liquidity of $265.3 million. As of September 30, 2018 our gross leverage ratio was 2.4 times and our net leverage ratio was 2.0 times, down 0.4 times from year end 2017 and down 0.8 times from a year ago. Based on the seasonality of our cash flow we expect to drive this down further by year end. As we enter the last quarter of the year let me share more detail on the full year 2018 guidance that was summarized in this morning’s press release. We expect 2018 revenue to be in the range of $970 million to $990 million. This range implies fourth quarter organic growth of approximately 5% at the midpoint. We expect our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $160 million to $170 million. Depreciation and amortization is expected to be $45 million $3 million lower than our previous guidance. We expect interest expense of approximately $36 million. Our full year non-GAAP effective tax rate is expected to be in the range of 30% to 31%. We project the full year fully diluted weighted average share count to be approximately 34 million shares. We expect capital expenditures in the range of $35 million to $40 million, $5 million lower than previous guidance as we continue to be disciplined around not spending if the appropriate returns are not available. And lastly, we expect free cash flow in the range of $35 million to $40 million. Regarding the fourth quarter comparison to last year. The most notable item impacting comparability is the sale of Language Solutions, which will negative impact our reported revenue comparison by $21.2 million and negatively impact our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA comparison by approximately $3.9 million inclusive of net stranded cost. And with that, I'll turn it back to Dan.