Tony Bowen
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your question please
Thanks, Jeff. Good afternoon, everyone. Before I get into the details of our results, I’d like to discuss the key change to our non-GAAP financial reporting starting this quarter. We are now reporting an adjusted non-GAAP EPS, which excludes amortization of intangibles related to acquisitions. This adjustment removes amortization of intangibles related to Wave, franchise buybacks, and tax office acquisitions. For context, approximately one third of our historical D&A expense was related to acquisitions. We believe these adjusted results will be beneficial for investors when evaluating H&R Block's operating performance. To assist with modeling, we have included quarterly historical and adjusted EPS schedules in our earnings release. Turning to our results. As a reminder, we typically report a loss during the fiscal second quarter due to the seasonality of our tax business. Therefore, second quarter results are not representative of our full year performance. Starting with revenues, we saw a year-over-year growth of $12 million or 8% to $161 million. This increase was primarily due to Wave, which contributed $11 million. Additionally, in the tax business, extension season results in the US were strong, with volume and share growth in both Assisted and DIY. These results were partially offset by lower net average charge in Assisted, which reflects the investment in price taken at the beginning of last tax season. It does not indicate a change in our plans for the upcoming season as we continue to anticipate our net average charge to be flat to the prior year. I’ll discuss details around our revenue guidance in a few minutes. Turning to expense. Total operating expenses increased $39 million or 11% to $404 million. This was primarily due to Wave, as well as planned investments related to our technology roadmap and higher legal expenses, partially offset by lower occupancy cost. Interest expense was $21 million, which was relatively flat to the prior year. The changes in revenue and expenses resulted in an increase in pre-tax loss from continuing operations of $29 million. GAAP loss per share increased $0.10 to $0.93. Adjusted loss per share, which we will report going forward increased $0.07 to $0.85, driven by the increase in pre-tax loss and lower shares outstanding, partially offset by an increased tax benefit due to favorable discrete items. As a reminder, while beneficial on a full year basis, the lower share count negatively impact EPS in quarters in which we report a loss. In discontinued operations, there were no changes to accrued contingent liabilities related to Sand Canyon during the quarter. For additional information on Sand Canyon, please refer to disclosures in the company's reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and other SEC filings. Regarding capital, our priorities remain unchanged. At the top of the list, it’s maintaining adequate liquidity for our operational needs to account for our seasonality. We came into this year with a strong financial position after generating over $500 million of free cash flow in fiscal '19. We then make strategic investments back in to the business that we believe deliver value to our clients, ultimately benefiting our shareholders. Making prudent investments to drive sustainable growth remains a key element of our capital allocation. Last, we will deploy excess capital through quarterly dividends and share repurchases. With respect to dividends, the health of our business and our outlook for the future has allowed for dividend increases over the past 4 years. Over that time, our quarterly dividend has increased 30%. We will perform an annual review of the dividend after each fiscal year. Regarding share repurchases, we remain committed to at a minimum, repurchasing shares to offset dilution from equity grants. During the second quarter, we repurchased 5.7 million shares for $137 million at an average price of $23.94. Year-to-date, we have repurchased a total of 7.3 million shares for $181 million at an average price of $24.75. Going forward, we will continue to be opportunistic in our share repurchase approach. I’d now like to provide thoughts on our fiscal '20 outlook. Starting with the tax industry, we expect overall return growth of about 1%, with Assisted volume flat to slightly up and DIY growing 2% to 3%. This is consistent with the trends we’ve seen over the last several years. Regarding H&R Block, we expect to grow both clients and market share in fiscal '20, which was marked the third consecutive year of improvements. This will be driven by sustained growth in DIY and a continued improvement in our client trajectory in Assisted, as we anticipate holding market share in that category. With respect to pricing, following the year in which we reset prices in our Assisted business, we expect net average charge to remain consistent with last year. In DIY, we will continue to price competitively as we focus on driving return volume and share gains. DIY net average charge is expected to increase slightly due to favorable mix led by online assist. We expect these client growth and pricing expectations, along with the addition of Wave to result in revenue growth of 1.5% to 3.5%. This is consistent with the outlook provided during our last two quarterly calls. With respect to earnings, we anticipate total EBITDA dollars to be slightly higher than fiscal '19 as we return to revenue growth. While our EBITDA loss increased in the first half, we still expect EBITDA growth for the full fiscal year. The majority of our revenue increase and planned cost reductions that will offset Wave's operating losses will be achieved in the fourth quarter. We expect these changes to result in revenue growth outpacing EBITDA growth, which will impact our margin. Therefore, we continue to anticipate EBITDA margin of 24% to 26% in fiscal '20. We’re updating our tax rate outlook to 19% to 21%, an improvement from our original outlook of 23% to 25%, primarily due to favorable settlements with tax authorities during the second quarter. Moving on to the other items in our financial outlook, we expect total depreciation and amortization of $165 million to $175 million, of which $70 million to $80 million will be amortization of intangibles related to acquisitions. As I mentioned earlier, this amortization expense reflects both Wave and other acquisitions and will be excluded from EPS for non-GAAP reporting. We expect full year interest expense to be $90 million to $100 million. And finally, our business continues to be capital light, and we expect capital expenditures to be slightly lower than the prior year at $70 million to $80 million. I’m excited about the season ahead and look forward to updating you on our progress in March. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Jeff.