John J. Roberts
Analyst · Huber Research Partners
Thank you, Jen. I'm excited to have you on the team. We're looking forward to your expertise as it relates to your experience in both an investor relations and communications firms and as a research analyst. It's great to have you here. Now let me welcome you all to the Dice Holdings Fourth Quarter Earnings Results Conference Call. First, I will give you details on our Q4 financial performance. Then I will turn the call over to Mike, who will cover the progress we are making on our strategic plan and provide a view of the company's key goals and initiatives for 2015, all of which are designed to further enhance our ability to capture organic growth longer term. And finally, we will open it up to questions. Overall, we are pleased with the continued progress we made on our operations during the fourth quarter, which builds on the work we have completed throughout the year. Recruitment activity in the fourth quarter was fairly consistent across our brands, with the exception of Energy where we have started to see significantly more uncertainty in the market. For the fourth quarter, I want to highlight a few areas important to our results: first, improved year-over-year organic billings growth, including in all 3 brands in our Tech & Clearance segment; second, higher year-over-year revenue per recruitment package customer at Dice.com, reflecting the positive impact of Open Web and increased service levels; and third, improved year-over-year results at Slashdot Media for a fourth quarter in a row. Fourth quarter revenues increased 16% year-over-year to $67.8 million. The majority of the growth, $7.5 million, came from businesses that we acquired since November of last year. The year-over-year increase also reflects growth in all 3 brands in the Tech & Clearance segment and Slashdot Media. Our profitability remained strong, with adjusted EBITDA at 30% of adjusted revenues and up 5% year-over-year to $20.1 million. Now for more detail on the specific segments. For Tech & Clearance, revenues increased 4% year-over-year, with growth in all segment brands. For Dice.com, revenues increased 1% year-over-year. At December 31, Dice recruitment package customers were 7,800, down relative to the count at the end of the third quarter. The decrease in count from Q3 to Q4 is typical and, on a percentage basis, was less than last year but similar with 2011 and 2012. Within the Dice recruitment package customer base, there were minimal shifts quarter-over-quarter between shorter-term and annual customers, with more than 90% or 7,250 of our customers under annual contract at quarter end. The renewal rate on annual contracts ticked up slightly both sequentially and on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter to 69%, with about 1,800 customers up for renewal during the quarter. In Q4, customers spent on average $1,070 per month, up 6% year-over-year, as customers continued to increase their levels of service. Given the significant growth of Open Web over the year, this now accounts for nearly half of the year-over-year increase in average revenue per customer during the quarter. Finally, within the Tech & Clearance segment, ClearanceJobs, while only accounting for 4% of our overall revenues, achieved record quarterly billings with the fourth straight quarter of higher year-over-year billings. Moving on to our Finance segment. Revenues increased 1% year-over-year to $9.2 million, with billings relatively flat to last year. Translation from the pound to the dollar negatively impacted revenues by $177,000 compared to the fourth quarter a year ago, so on a constant currency basis, revenues increased 2% year-over-year. I'll be discussing the regions in their respective functional currency to give perspective on the underlying business trends. Overall, the trend is positive in the major financial centers. In the U.K., revenues increased 6% year-over-year in sterling and accounted for about 43% of the segment's revenues in the quarter. The environment continues to be better than last year. In the Asia Pacific region, which is 24% of overall segment revenues, revenues were up 2% in Singapore dollars, with stronger performance in Asia, which was up 10%, offset by a continued softness in Australia. In Continental Europe and the Middle East, which is a combined 19% of the segment, revenues increased 8% in euros. And current sentiment there is more mixed, especially in Switzerland and France. The U.S., which is 13% of the segment's revenues, was down 3% year-over-year. However, Q4 billings were up 4% year-over-year, marking 2 straight quarters of billings growth. In our Energy segment, revenues were up 34% year-over-year to $8 million in the fourth quarter, including OilCareers, acquired in March 2014, which contributed $1.9 million in the quarter. In the quarter, we started to see the impact of falling oil prices and an increase in overall uncertainty in the market. We expect the impacts to be worse as we move forward into 2015 given the announced layoffs at several large energy companies and the impact of uncertainty on hiring plans. In our Healthcare segment, revenues totaled $6.9 million, up $3.2 million from Q4 2013 due to the November 2013 acquisitions of HEALTHeCAREERS and BioSpace. The Hospitality segment contributed $3.6 million of revenues in the quarter, up $2.2 million due to the timing of the 2013 acquisition of Hcareers. Finally, Corporate & Other. This segment contains Slashdot Media and WorkDigital. Slashdot Media revenues increased 16% year-over-year to $4.7 million due to the continued impact of better strategies to optimize the assets of the business. This makes 4 consecutive quarters of improved performance for this business. This segment also contains our corporate-related costs, which were $3.3 million in the quarter. On a year-over-year basis, for our largest segments. Q4 billings for Tech & Clearance were up 11%, including an increase of 8% year-over-year at Dice.com. Finance billings were consistent with prior year. And Energy, including OilCareers, increased 38%. Our billings performance is reflected in deferred revenue on the balance sheet, which totaled $86.4 million at the end of the year, which is up 12% or $9.1 million from last year. While deferred revenue is certainly driven by the timing of billings to some extent, there are some positive indicators within here. The increase was primarily driven by Dice.com and ClearanceJobs, which contributed $4.2 million of the $9.1 million increase; and the acquisition of OilCareers also accounted for approximately 10% of the increase. On the expense side, operating expenses decreased 15% year-over-year, primarily due to a $15.9 million impairment charge in Q4 of last year. Excluding the impact of the impairment charge in 2013, operating expenses increased $6.5 million year-over-year or 13%. The year-over-year increase from acquired businesses was $6.7 million in the quarter. While operating expenses for Q4 were slightly above our initial expectations, we took the opportunity to continue to invest in the quarter. As an example, our own hiring was higher than usual, and we were able to fill open positions faster than we thought. Additionally, Dice.com ran a successful marketing campaign in Silicon Valley. And given the positive reception, we expanded it faster than initially planned. Adjusted EBITDA, which includes the add-back $142,000 for the fair value adjustment related to purchase accounting of acquisitions, totaled $20.1 million or 30% of adjusted revenues during the fourth quarter. That's up 5% year-over-year. Reconciliations of adjusted EBITDA to net income and net cash flow from operations are provided in our press release. Our income tax expense for the quarter was $5 million, resulting in an effective tax rate of 44%. The rate was higher than our normalized rate due to a true-up of a discrete item from the OTJ acquisition. For the full year, income tax expense totaled $15.2 million, for an effective rate of 36%. The 36% rate is lower than our normalized go-forward rate due to the tax benefit recognized in Q3 in 2014. The company posted net income in Q4 of $6.5 million, resulting in diluted EPS of $0.12. Cash flow from operations totaled $7.9 million in the fourth quarter compared to $8.6 million last year and $55.5 million for the full year compared to $49.4 million last year. This is up 13% year-over-year, while we continued to invest in our business for growth and innovation. The financial strength and consistency of our business allowed us to expand strategically and continue to return cash to stockholders through our buyback program. We ended the year with $26.8 million in cash and equivalents and $110.5 million of debt outstanding after $2.6 million in net debt repayment and $1.9 million in CapEx spending during the fourth quarter. During the quarter, we purchased approximately 700,000 shares of our common stock pursuant to our stock repurchase plan at an average cost of $8.34 per share, for a total cost of approximately $5.6 million. In December 2014, the board authorized a new buyback program for a total of $50 million. For 2015, our guidance includes ranges for both the upcoming quarter and the full year. For 2015, we anticipate revenues in the range of $268 million to $276 million and adjusted EBITDA of $80 million to $84 million or approximately 30% of revenues. In Q1, we expect revenues $63.5 million to $65 million and adjusted EBITDA of $16.5 million to $17.5 million or 26% to 27% of revenues. There are a few items impacting the Q1 guidance specifically that I want to highlight. First, the growing uncertainty in the Energy market is projected to have a significant impact on Q1 revenues. Because we believe the impact of that to be temporary, we are not reducing expenses in our Energy segment, therefore an impact on Q1 margins. Second, on a year-over-year basis, the strengthening dollar is expected to have approximately a $1 million negative impact on Q1 revenue. And third, we continue to make investments in the Dice.com product in sales teams, as well as new investments in the Healthcare vertical through product development. For more on the investments and strategies, we have planned to drive organic revenue growth in 2015. Let me turn the call over to Mike.