Brian McKeon
Analyst · Morgan Stanley
Thanks, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. Slide 3 highlights the key messages from today's review. We continue to drive strong financial performance in the third quarter. Reported revenue growth for the quarter of 2% was in line with our outlook. Results were supported by solid gains in our International Physical segment, strong growth in hybrid services and benefits from higher recycled paper prices. Revenue growth continues to be constrained by economic factors, which contributed to very soft core service activity this summer. Adjusted OIBDA came in above the high end of our guidance range, driven by continued benefits from productivity initiatives and lower incentive compensation accruals. Adjusted OIBDA increased 13% in Q3 and 11% year-to-date versus the prior year. Adjustments to incentive compensation accruals added about five points of growth in Q3 and four points of growth on a year-to-date basis. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.35 per share, an increase of 39% compared to the same period last year. Our reported EPS was a loss of $0.76 per share, including a $1.24 per share after-tax charge for the Digital goodwill impairment. As we proactively advance changes to improve performance in our Digital business, we evaluated our Digital business carrying value, resulting in a $255 million estimated goodwill impairment charge. We'll finalize the amount in the fourth quarter and record any adjustment if necessary at that time. It's important to note that this charge does not impact revenue, adjusted OIBDA, adjusted EPS or free cash flow. Both Bob and I will discuss this more fully later in our remarks. Also included in reported EPS were benefits for the impacts on Other Income and our effective tax rate related to the weakening of the U.S. dollar within the quarter and the gain on the sale of our domain name management product line. For the full year, we're raising our adjusted OIBDA outlook reflecting the strong year-to-date performance and benefits from lower incentive compensation accruals. We're also raising our full year cash flow outlook to reflect lower capital spending projections and expected benefits from recently enacted U.S. tax legislation. We're refining our revenue outlook as well to incorporate current internal growth trends and foreign currency exchange rates. Let's now turn to Slide 4 and begin our review of the third quarter results. Slide 4 compares our results for this quarter to the third quarter of 2009. Q3 was another solid quarter of financial performance. Enterprise revenue growth was 2%, in line with our outlook with overall gains constrained by continued softness in core service activity. Continued strong profit performance was supported gross margin gains and benefits from lower incentive compensation accruals. From a segment perspective, North American Physical posted 2% internal growth supported by strong complementary service revenue performance, including benefits from higher paper pricing and hybrid service revenues. Storage internal growth was 1% in Q3. North American records management volume growth moderated as continued higher outgoing volumes offset new sales gains. As expected, there was some moderation in average net price gains, which are now trending in the 2% range for Records Management, due in part to lower CPI levels. Episodic destructions in our Physical Data Protection business constrained growth in that service line and also contributed to lower storage revenue growth. Core service revenues declined this summer, consistent with overall soft economic conditions. Our International Physical segment generated 5% internal growth. Storage internal growth was a solid 6%, supported by strong performance in the expansion markets. Reported revenues for this segment were 3%, including the impacts of foreign currency exchange rate changes. In our Digital segment, reported revenue declined 1% in the third quarter as gains in backup and archiving services were offset by the divestiture of our domain name management product line and continued pressure on eDiscovery revenues. We expect continued pressure on Digital revenue growth in the near term as we work through comparisons to stronger prior year growth in areas such as eDiscovery. We continue to translate moderate overall revenue growth into strong gross profit gains. Gross profit increased 6% versus the prior year, yielding a 220 basis points margin improvement. Higher storage gross margins, particularly in the International segment are supporting these gains. Continued benefits from productivity initiatives drove higher service margins, which were also a key contributor to our improved performance. Adjusted OIBDA grew 13% to $254 million. This increase was driven by gross profit gains, controlled SG&A spending and lower incentive compensation expense, which added about five points of growth in the quarter. These gains were partially offset by Mimosa integration costs and targeted investments in growth initiatives. Below the adjusted OIBDA line, depreciation was $77 million and amortization was $10 million, in line with our forecast. Other Income for the quarter was $9 million, including a $7 million gain on the sale of our domain name management program line and a $4 million gain related to foreign currency rate changes in the quarter. These were offset by an early debt extinguishment charge of $2 million. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.35 per share, an increase of 39% compared to the prior year, reflecting strong operating performance combined with lower interest expense. Reported EPS for the second quarter was a loss of $0.76 per share, including the impact of the $255 million non-cash charge for the Digital goodwill impairment. The structural tax rate for the third quarter was 38%, in line with our expectations. Including the impact of discrete tax items primarily related to the impairment charge, the effective tax rate for the quarter was minus 16%. It was minimal tax benefit associated with the goodwill impairment charge as the majority of goodwill associated with our Digital business is non-deductible. Also included as discrete tax items was a reversal of worldwide tax reserves due to lapses of statue of limitation periods and settlements with taxing authorities, and the positive impact of foreign exchange rate changes in the quarter. These benefits more than offset a charge to establish a valuation allowance, reflecting recently enacted U.S. legislative changes impacting the expected utilization of foreign tax credits. We expect the structural tax rate for 2010 to be 39%. Let's now take a closer look at our revenue growth on Slide 5. Slide 5 breaks down our overall revenue growth. It shows internal growth by major service line as well as the impact of acquisitions and foreign exchange compared to our 2010 full year outlook. Total internal growth for the quarter was 2%, consistent with the prior quarter. Economic factors continue to constrain service activity levels and storage growth. Core activity correlates with employment and general economic trends and has remained soft in recent quarters. The internal growth rate for core storage revenues was 2% in the quarter. Records Management volume growth moderated slightly as continued higher outgoing volume levels in North America offset new sales gains and solid momentum in international markets. Storage revenue growth also reflected moderated average net pricing gains in North American Records Management and episodic destructions in the Physical Data Protection business. We expect Storage internal growth for 2010 to be in the 2% to 3% range. Core revenue internal growth was 1% in the third quarter, primarily reflecting lower core service activity levels. We're planning for continued weakness in core service revenues until we see clear signs of improvement. For the full year, we expect core revenue internal growth to be in the 1% range. Solid growth in our complementary service revenues was supported by higher recycled paper prices and strong gains in hybrid service revenues. These gains were partially offset by lower eDiscovery revenues and the lapping of a large European project. Overall, revenue growth trends remain relatively consistent. Income and volume growth is stabilizing, and we're seeing some improvement in new sales. Offsetting these trends are continued weakness in core service activities and moderated net average pricing in the North American Box business, due in part to lower CPI rates. As a result, we expect full year internal growth to be in the 2% to 3% range. At recent exchange rates, we expect the FX impact to increase revenue growth this year by about 1%. Acquisitions net of the domain name product line divestiture are expected to add less than 1% to total growth. Let's now turn to Slide 6 to review our year-to-date performance. Slide 6 shows our year-to-date operating performance compared to the first nine months of 2009. Despite the ongoing economic factors that are constraining revenue growth, we continue to drive strong profit and cash flow performance. Gross profit increased 9% to $1.4 billion, yielding a 220 basis point improvement in gross margin for the first nine months of 2010 compared to the same prior-year period. These results are supported by continued benefits from North American productivity initiatives, solid international operating performance and higher recycled paper prices. Gross profit gains are sustainable and position us well for flow-through benefits for higher growth when the economic conditions improve. Adjusted OIBDA grew 11% for the first nine months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009. Strong gross margin gains, controlled overhead spending and lower incentive compensation expense, which added about four points to growth, drove the increase. Solid underlying operating performance and lower interest expense drove a 24% increase in adjusted EPS compared to the first nine months of 2009. Disciplined capital spending combined with strong operating profit gains drove a 12% increase in year-to-date free cash flow compared to the same prior year period. Let's move now to Slide 7 for a year-to-date review from a segment perspective. Slide 7 shows key metrics for each of our four segments compared to the first nine months of 2009. The strength of our business portfolio is enabling strong sustainable financial performance. Our year-to-date results reflect solid gains in our North America and International Physical business segments. North America, our largest segment, continues to post solid revenue growth while driving higher profits and strong cash flows. As highlighted at Investor Day, we're capitalizing on our leadership in this segment to expand our services and drive the strong returns that flow from our recurring revenue model. Our International segment is delivering solid revenue gains supported by strong growth in the expansion markets. Select cost accrual impacts have lowered International segment adjusted OIBDA by about $8 million year-to-date. Excluding these effects, the segment is driving solid comparable margin gains and strong profit growth. These gains reflect benefits from driving operational excellence initiatives in the developed markets and from building scale across our business. Continued benefits in these areas are expected to be a key contributor to our overall profit performance going forward. In our Digital business, we continue to work through economic impacts that have pressured this business in recent quarters. As Bob will discuss in more detail, we're actively advancing efforts to better integrate our Digital services into Iron Mountain, to accelerate growth and cost efficiencies. As noted earlier, we proactively reassessed the value of our Digital goodwill in Q3. This resulted in a $255 million impairment related to our worldwide Digital segment and a $1.24 reduction of reported EPS. This impairment reflects a combination of factors including recent economic pressures on the Digital business and specific recent challenges related to our eDiscovery business. At a higher level, it's taking longer than originally anticipated to build this business towards higher scale and profitability. We're taking proactive steps to improve performance in Digital, including changing leadership, integrating sales efforts to drive our growth and integrating elements of support operations to drive cost efficiencies. Digital services are an important part of our integrated value proposition and our long-term potential. We'll continue advancing positive steps to strengthen our sales performance and returns in this business. Let's turn to Slide 8 for a more detailed look at our capital spending and free cash flow. Slide 8 summarizes our capital spending and our free cash flow on a year-to-date basis. We continue to drive strong cash flow performance through a disciplined approach. Total capital spending was up $174 million for the first nine months of 2010, including $7 million for real estate. We remain focused on driving efficiencies in our capital spending while supporting key growth initiatives and projects that help drive long-term return improvement. As a result of higher operating profits and lower capital expenditures, free cash flow before acquisitions and discretionary investments in real estate was $260 million for the first nine months of the year, a 12% increase over the same prior-year period. We remain solidly on track for record performance in both capital efficiency and free cash flow. For 2010, we're increasing our expectations for free cash flow before acquisitions and discretionary investments in real estate to approximately $350 million to $380 million. This reflects a strong year-to-date performance, expected benefits from recently enacted U.S. tax legislation, and updated projections for capital spending in the $270 million range. Our strong operating cash flow allows us to invest towards long-term growth in our business while also supporting shareholder payouts. In the third quarter, we acquired 1.8 million shares of our stock for approximately $40 million. As of September 30, we have acquired 4 million shares for approximately $95 million year-to-date. As we announced at Investor Day earlier this month, our Board recently approved a $200 million increase to our existing share repurchase program. This authorization is in addition to the $150 million authorization announced earlier this year, which as of September 30 had approximately $55 million remaining. This leaves us a balance of $255 million for additional share repurchases. Let's now turn to Slide 9 for a review of our key debt statistics. Our strong financial performance and focus on cash management continues to strengthen our balance sheet. Our debt portfolio at September 30, 2010, remains long and fixed. Our weighted average interest rate is 6.9%, and we're 87% fixed. Maturity is 7.1 years with no meaningful repayment obligations until 2014. Our consolidated leverage ratio decreased to 3.0x. Currently, our consolidated leverage ratio is at the low end of what we feel is a very manageable 3x to 4x leverage level for our company. During the quarter, we used excess cash to fund a $200 million partial redemption of our 7 3/4% senior subordinated notes due in 2015. This transaction reduces our annual interest expense by about $16 million. We're also well positioned in terms of cash and financing capacity. Liquidity is more than $945 million, with $184 million in cash and $762 million in additional borrowing capacity as of quarter end. This concludes our review of the Q3 2010 results. While the digital asset impairment impacted our reported profit results, our underlying operating profit and cash flow performance remains strong commercial, reflecting our disciplined management approach and strong business foundation. Let's now to turn to Slide 10 to discuss our financial outlook. Slide 10 summarizes our full year 2010 and Q4 guidance. We remain on track for strong financial performance this year. For 2010, we now expect revenue to be in the range of $3,120,000,000 to $3,140,000,000, at the lower end of our guidance range. This represents reported revenue growth of about 4% including internal revenue growth of between 2% and 3%, and 1% to 1.5% of combined acquisition growth and FX benefit. We're increasing our profit outlook reflecting productivity gains, controlled spending and benefits from lower incentive compensation accruals. We expect adjusted OIBDA of $940 million to $955 million up 8% to 10% versus prior year. Adjusted EPS is now projected in the $1.12 to $1.16 range or growth of 14% to 19%. As noted, we're increasing our free cash flow outlook to $350 million to $380 million, reflecting the flow-through of strong operating performance, expected benefits from recent tax legislation and projections for capital expenditures of about $270 million for the year. The capital outlook includes about $15 million for real estate. As noted earlier, the digital asset impairment has no impact on revenue, adjusted OIBDA, adjusted EPS or free cash flow. For Q4, we're projecting revenue of $780 million to $800 million and adjusted OIBDA in the $233 million to $248 million range. Thanks, and now, I'd like to turn the call over to Bob.