Earnings Labs

LifeVantage Corporation (LFVN)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, May 6, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to this LifeVantage Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2015 Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. John Mills of ICR. Please go ahead, sir.

John Mills

Management

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to LifeVantage Corporation’s fiscal third quarter 2015 conference call. On the call today from LifeVantage with prepared remarks are Dave Manovich, Executive Vice Chairman; and Dave Colbert, Chief Financial Officer. By now everyone should have access to the earnings release which went out this afternoon at approximately 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you have not received the release, it is available on the Investor Relations portion of LifeVantage’s website at lifevantage.com. This call is being webcast and a replay will be available on the company’s website as well. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance and, therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. These statements are based on current expectations of the management and involve inherent risks and uncertainties including those identified in the Risk Factors section of LifeVantage’s most recently filed 10-K and 10-Q. These risk factors contain a more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. This call also contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this live broadcast, May 06, 2015. LifeVantage assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking projection that may be made in today’s release or call. And based on the number of participants on today’s call, during the Q&A session, we ask that you please limit the number of your questions to three. Now, I will turn the call over to the company’s Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Dave Manovich.

Dave Manovich

Management

Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. It’s been a very busy three months since our last conference call. And during the quarter, we worked diligently to realign our cost structure. We believe this effort correctly aligns expenses with our current revenue trends. Additionally, we are very excited about the recent appointment of Darren Jensen as our next President and Chief Executive Officer. Throughout the transition to a new CEO, we have continued taking the necessary steps to reignite top-line growth. Upon joining the company in mid May, Darren will have the flexibility to further shape, drive, and articulate the company’s strategic initiatives. Officially, Darren takes the CEO chair or May 18, and he will lead the next investor call. As a short introduction, let me assure you that we have conducted an extensive national search and evaluated a number of highly qualified candidates. He stood out with his unparallel track record of success and leading the development and execution of business expansion and sales growth strategies. To provide some background, Darren has 25 years of global network marketing experience with companies selling a variety of product types including nutritional supplements and personal care products. He most recently serviced as President of the Americas and Chief Sales Officer for Jeunesse Global, a personal care and nutrition network marketing company. During his tenure Jeunesse, the company was listed in the 2014 Inc 500 with approximately 1800% revenue growth over a three year period and was the fastest growing direct selling association company in America for 2014. He has experience with other leading network marketing companies including USANA, Amway, Nu Skin, and Synergy worldwide. We’re confident that Darren has the right experience to lead LifeVantage in our next phase and capitalize on the many untapped opportunities. Our third quarter results were in-line with…

Dave Colbert

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. For the third quarter ended March 31, we reported revenue of approximately $45 million, compared to $55 million in the prior year period. During the quarter, revenue in the Americas increased 1%, while revenue in the Asia Pacific region declined 45%. A year-over-year decline in the Asia Pacific region is primarily due to Japan’s lower volume, negative foreign currency exchange and a benefit in the prior year period from customers accelerating purchases in advance of announced price increases that went into effect on April 1, 2014. Revenue for the quarter was negatively impacted $1.8 million or 3% by foreign currency fluctuation. Our gross profit margin and gross profit for the third quarter was 83.3% and $38 million versus 84.5% and $47 million for the prior year quarter. Commission and incentives for the second quarter was 48% of revenue, compared to 49% of revenue in the same period last year. We expect our commission and incentive expenses to remain at approximately 48% for the full year. SG&A expenses for the third quarter was 32% of revenue compared to 28% of revenue in the same period last year. SG&A expenses in the current quarter include $1.2 million of one-time expenses including severance cost related to the departure of the company’s former CEO, the engagement of an executive search firm, and one-time investments in new sales events. Net income for the third quarter was $600,000 or $0.01 per diluted share calculated on approximately 98 million fully diluted shares. This compares to $2.5 million or $0.02 per diluted share calculated on 107 million fully diluted shares in the same period last year. Turning briefly to our year-to-date results, for the first nine months of fiscal 2015, revenue was approximately $145 million, compared to $158 million in the prior…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And we'll take our first question from Eric Weisenberger, private investor.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

Yes, hi, thank you. I'm allowed three questions. One, I did some quick math and if I'm looking at it correctly, you paid an average of $1.30 a share in the stock buyback with the $9.9 million; is that roughly right?

Dave Colbert

Chief Financial Officer

Correct.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

So then you haven’t been buying much in the last two or three months, it looks like as the stock's been under a $1. So is there going to be more stock purchases ongoing now that stock is setting new lows?

Dave Colbert

Chief Financial Officer

Yes, this is Dave Colbert. Eric, it’s a matter of capital allocation at this point. We were buying and aggressively buying stock and did purchase up to $10 million, and at the present time we've turned our focus to really looking forward to fiscal '16 and aggressively getting our debt balance. And by the end of this quarter, we'll be below $22 million in debt which is going to really help us out from reducing our interest payments going forward and give us more financial flexibility and liquidity for growth initiatives to really we can let our newly appointed CEO come in with some growth initiative ideas and give him the flexibility. So it's really capital allocation at this time and that's our focus getting to this fourth quarter, fiscal quarter.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

Well, okay. My second question is why have we not seen directors and management officers purchasing the stock which would be disclosed of course down at the $0.77 levels where it's been for quite some time? I can't understand why the directors of management haven’t shown that they believe in this company and they're buying stock aggressively because it's so cheap; why has none of that happened?

Dave Colbert

Chief Financial Officer

Well, just based on the calendar we go into what's called blackout periods. And these blackout periods last for about a month and a half before the quarter ends and certainly until after we disclose earnings and also during the quarter we're limited to what we can do based on what non-public information we are privy to. So we have limitations to how aggressively we can go out there and buy stock.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

Right, but so far there's been none, and the general counsel, in fact, sold stock at $0.77. I think that sends a terrible message to stockholders. Just a comment. And finally, the new CEO Jenson's compensation package looks very generous to me, it was disclosed of course. And he had said one of the ways he could depart is if the stock is delisted. He must know that we've already been warned about that. So can we interpret his joining anyway that he feels he can get the stock back over a dollar in the next six months?

Dave Manovich

Management

Yes, this is Dave Manovich. Certainly, our strong focus as we indicated in the release is on growing the top line and coming back into compliance. Again, we have a number of tools that we can utilize to come back into compliance and we're looking at all of those and we fully intend on pursuing those and getting back into compliance with the NASDAQ requirements.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

So you can't be more specific than that or on the stabilization of Japan, you mentioned distractions. Can you be any more specific about what those were, negative distractions? That’s my last question.

Dave Manovich

Management

Yes, we've discussed those in the past that we’ve had departure of some of our distributors there, and that has created some problematic situations that we've had to -- our management over there dealing with. And we're working through a number of those. And as you can see, when we -- during the course of the call that we have a stabilization of revenues that you see over the last couple of quarters, we expect that to continue during the current quarter. So we're making a lot of progress against that, but it's been an issue that’s taken us a number of months to fully address.

Eric Weisenberger

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today’s question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Manovich for closing remarks.

Dave Manovich

Management

Yes, I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And we certainly appreciate your continued interest and loyalty to the company, and look forward to introducing you to Darren Jenson in the near future and reporting on our progress, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today’s conference. We do thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great rest of your day.