Earnings Labs

Entravision Communications Corporation (EVC)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Mon, May 13, 2019

$3.85

+0.00%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.73%

1 Week

+7.96%

1 Month

+0.00%

vs S&P

-3.10%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good evening and welcome to the Entravision Communications Quarter and Full Year Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Walter Ulloa. Please go ahead.

Walter Ulloa

Analyst

Thank you, Izzy. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to Entravision’s fourth quarter 2018 conference call as well as full year. Joining me on the call today is Jeff Liberman, our President and COO and Chris Young, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I must inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to our SEC filings for a list of risks and uncertainties that could impact actual results. This call is the property of Entravision Communications Corporation. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Entravision Communications Corporation is strictly prohibited. Also, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures in today’s press release. The press release is available on the company’s website and was filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. Our fourth quarter results were in line with our expectations, with solid growth achieved by our television segment, partially offset by decreased revenues in both our radio and digital segments compared to the prior year period. Our balance sheet continues to be solid, with approximately $179 million in cash and marketable securities on the books and total debt of $246 million, yielding a total net leverage of 1.2x. We continued to return capital to shareholders through both our $0.05 per quarter dividend and our share repurchase program. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 2 million Entravision shares at an average price of $3.12 per share. For 2018, in total, we repurchased approximately 3.5 million shares at an average price of $3.88 per share. Turning to our consolidated financial performance for the quarter,…

Chris Young

Analyst

Thank you, Walter. Good afternoon, everyone. Given the delayed filing of our 10-K this year, rather than cover the usual topics that I would normally discuss in the call, I think it’s best to just touch briefly on why our filing was late this year, and then we will turn it over to questions. So during our audit process, we had identified 2 nonmaterial items related to Headway’s 2017 financial results. These items related to certain liabilities of Headway that were under-accrued during 2017. Both of these items were not material to Entravision’s financial statements. And more details are provided in the 10-K that we filed today. Now the complicated factor that caused this process to drag on was that we have new auditors this year, BDO. Since the items that we uncovered occurred in 2017, we were required to bring back our prior auditors, Grant Thornton, as well as our current auditors in this complicated review process. Again, the items were deemed not to be material, and both auditors have signed off on our 10-K, which was filed with the SEC this morning. Also due to the delay of getting the K out, as we included in our press release this morning, we do expect a short delay in finalizing our 10-Q for the quarter, the deadline for which is this Friday. With that said, we don’t expect the delay to be lengthy. It is purely a function of the lateness of our K, which was pushed back for – which pushed back our first quarter close process. I will now turn it over to the operator for questions. Izzy?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital. Please go ahead.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Thank you and thanks for taking the questions. Just like, first of all, it looks like the cash flow was in line with my expectations for the fourth quarter. In the quarter, operating expenses were lower than I expected. I know that you outlined some cost-cutting initiatives last year. Can you talk about where you are in the cost-cutting process and whether you have identified additional areas for savings this year? And when will we begin to cycle through those cost cuts, would that be in the fourth quarter or would that be in the third quarter of this year?

Chris Young

Analyst

No, we put those cost cuts in April of last year. So, we are cycling through first quarter of this year will be the last comp where you will see some nice expense reductions. And then moving forward, I would expect to see expenses in the flat to low single-digit range going forward.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got it. And then if you could just identify in terms of the little revenue weakness in digital as you indicated sounds like a company decision, was that largely a function of Headway then or can you talk about the outlook for digital revenue growth and the company’s objectives for that division going over the next 3 to 5 years?

Walter Ulloa

Analyst

Well, I will just make a comment and – Michael and Chris may have more to fill in here, but this was an overall decision by the executives that manage Headway and Smadex and of course, Entravision corporate and that was to focus on revenue that produces better margins. And so to be a little more selective in the type of advertising campaigns we take in order to increase the gross profitability of the campaigns. So, that was why we saw a slight call it drop in revenue versus Q4 of 2017 it would be, yes. So I think that pretty much explains it. Chris, do you have anything to add there?

Chris Young

Analyst

Yes. I mean I think what I would add to that is instead of focusing on revenue at least from an internal budget standpoint we have got a significant enhanced budget as far as cash flow is concerned, because that’s where our focus is. So we are trying to enhance the value contribution of the digital platform to our overall operation. And obviously, growing cash flow is the way to do that, not necessarily growing revenue without cash flow growth.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got it. And I am sorry.

Walter Ulloa

Analyst

Just to add to that, Michael, our mantra has been revenue growth is great, but we want to see cash flow growth as well. So...

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got it. And at one point, I thought that the plan was to introduce Headway more aggressively into the United States market. Was that still the plan or has that strategy changed?

Walter Ulloa

Analyst

No, we are doing that. I mean we have got – we have a team working here in the United States. One of the things that we – one of our goals is to take some of the products that Headway is marketing and producing and target the U.S. Hispanic market with these products. So more on that later, but we are making some progress there.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got it. And then my last question is can you talk a little bit about Univision being back on DISH? And have you identified the amount of revenue impact you believe you’ll be gaining from being back on the air? How much did that influence the fourth quarter numbers?

Chris Young

Analyst

It didn’t come back online in the fourth quarter. It came back online in the first quarter, so...

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Yes. First quarter, yes.

Chris Young

Analyst

Actually, no, it was second quarter. April 1, I believe was the first day we were put back on. So that went off the air. We went dark in July of last year. That represented about $1 million a quarter in lost revenue for the back half of the year. As it’s coming back online now due to the subscriber declines with DISH, instead of that being a $1 million line item for us now, it’s probably better to think of that as an $800,000 line item with the decline in subscribers over at DISH as it comes back on.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Yes, got it. So, about $800,000 incremental per quarter?

Chris Young

Analyst

That’s correct.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Okay, perfect. Okay. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Chris Young

Analyst

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We are showing no further questions. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Walter for any closing remarks.

Walter Ulloa

Analyst

Thank you, Izzy and thank you everyone for participating on our fourth quarter and full year 2018 earnings results. We look forward to speaking to everyone in the coming days when we announce our first quarter 2019 earnings results. Again, thank you for participating.