Shaun E. McAlmont
Analyst · Baird
Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Joining me in the room today is Cesar Ribeiro, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me begin this morning by reading the Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this presentation concerning Lincoln Educational Services Corporation's future prospects are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that future results will be achieved, and actual results may differ materially from forecasts, estimates and summary information contained in this earnings release. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are included, but not limited to, those listed in Lincoln's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, and other periodic reports filed with the SEC. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. This morning, I'll provide an overview of our company's operations, and Cesar will review our fourth quarter and full year financial results and also provide our outlook for the first quarter and full year of 2013. We'll then take your questions. As stated in our press release this morning, we believe that 2012 was the trough in the 2-year down cycle of our company, as we continue to strategically refocus the company on our skill training programs. We managed this retrenchment while also accomplishing improvements in our key student outcomes of job placement and persistence rates and maintaining an exemplary regulatory compliance record. Also from a financial point of view, excluding the non-charge -- noncash impairment charges from prior acquisitions, we remained profitable and generated positive cash flow for the year. Our student starts from continuing operations are stabilizing and will add an increase in certificate starts, positioning us well for 2013 as a more focused company. During 2013, we intend to continue to drive improvements in student outcomes. We will pursue select acquisitions, launch new certificate program offerings in manufacturing and health care and secure training partnerships with selected industry associations. We look forward to realizing successful results in these areas in the second half of 2013 and beyond. In addition, we've identified 4 campus success models, which are currently operating within the company, that will guide the future development of all Lincoln schools. First is our Denver model, which is a big-box, 250,000-square-foot, multiple-program skill training school with state-of-the-industry equipment. This campus has received broad acclaim from industry professionals and students since opening as one of the best, if not the best, of its type in that country. Our Mahwah model is a medium-sized facility featuring partnership training programs, both on and off site, including BMW and Chrysler training. This campus also piloted our successful Lincoln Edge program and has the best placement outcomes in the company. Our Queens model is a smaller box with an auto-only offering, sharing the facility with a direct industry partner, in this case, the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association, which exposes students to the job market while they're in school. This campus has high student outcomes across the board. And fourth, our Paramus model, which provides health care training and medical front office and nursing. This Paramus campus has high satisfaction from its allied health students and will host the New Jersey Technology Council conference and expo next month for hundreds of business and general public participants. Each of these campus models boasts strong local leadership, a focused to skilled training, active government relations, impressive facilities and beneficial industry partnerships. They, again, represent Lincoln's future model for all schools. Now as a point of background. When the first Lincoln school opened in 1946, it did so with a simple mission, and that was to help veterans coming home from World War II develop the skills they needed to find jobs in a changing American economy. Our reach has since grown and our business model has evolved, but the foundation is unchanged. We're here to provide training that leads to successful professional outcomes for every student who wants to change their life with a new career. From 1946 to 2012, this has been what drives us: An unwavering commitment to excellence for our students, our employer partners included and also the industries we support and our shareholders. As I stated earlier, 2012 was a year of continued retrenchment for Lincoln Educational Services. Historically, our campuses provided opportunities for the students that others forgot. We took pride in educating all students from all walks of life despite their life circumstances. Our company's mission was to expand our reach to those needing training through our geographic expansion, higher degrees and also our diversified programs. We now operate in a new environment where there is constant scrutiny on our sector base -- both on perceptions and realities. However, a blanket approach has applied from those in Washington. Yet we continue to prepare automotive technicians, welders, health care workers and HVAC technicians better than most in this country. Our graduates find jobs in their field, and those who work hard find promotions and great, long-term careers. The year ahead will see us expand into new areas to service the needed skills required by employers while continuing to build on our areas of strength in academic excellence, commitment to our students, strong relationships with our partners and our commitment to a strong regulatory foundation. Our goal is to be recognized as first choice by students who want to improve their lives and by the employers who hire them. It's a goal that's broad and it's aggressive. But to reach it, we only need to remember where we came from and why we're here. Outside influences and a new operating environment can't be ignored, but nor will they hold us back. Instead, they will become part of the building blocks that set Lincoln up for success in 2013 and beyond. Now in 2012, new starts were lower across the sector and at Lincoln. Student starts were down in total 7.7% for the total fiscal year 2012 compared to 2011, which reflects a stabilizing of start declines. If we exclude discontinued online programs of ATB, total starts were down 6.2% for the year and 12% for the fourth quarter. The first half of 2013 will continue to reflect declines due to the discontinued online programs and the loss of ATB students. These 2 areas of start comparisons will lap at quarter 3 2013. And at that time, we expect starts from continuing operations to grow in the second half and be flat to slightly down for the year, as compared to 2012, primarily due to affordability. It was a difficult decision to cease enrolling fully online students. However, we had to find a niche where Lincoln could succeed long term. In addition to the cost of recruiting in a saturated market, the nature of the programs were lengthy, costly and undifferentiated, which made this a noncompelling market for our long-term strategy. And the overall cost structure was also burdensome on the company. ATB students were prevalent in many of our schools, and the desire to grow and cater to this population was ultimately overshadowed by the poor results, which were eroding our 90/10 and cohort default rates. And while we believe we had piloted a successful program to ensure that these students were successful, the federal rule shutting down this program forced us to stop enrolling these students. Already we're seeing improvements in student persistence, and we know this will have a positive impact on our cohort default rates in 2 years. Our outlook and growth for 2013 and beyond really is based on early indicators for improved high school starts in the third quarter: new programs that will launch in 2013 including manufacturing, dialysis technician and RN programs; our improved student persistence; also increasing the comfort of the admissions processing; and our new website optimization; not to mention the lapping of ATB and online discontinuances I mentioned earlier. Early indicators show our high school leads in enrollments are approximately 2% ahead of prior year, at the same time. And our early financial aid package students are significantly ahead of prior year. The number of representatives is flat, indicating, at least, at this point, that comfort in the new process is taking hold. Let me take a moment to expand on our regulatory emphasis. You've probably noticed that Lincoln rarely has headlines regarding regulatory issues or broad displays of student or employee dissatisfaction. We take pride in maintaining a strong regulatory track record. We look at regulatory strength in 2 ways: First, compliance to standards of accreditation, state and federal rules; and secondly, in our student outcomes. Our compliance efforts include: an internal regulatory review and accreditation readiness process; internal audits of company controls; curriculum review focused on student job readiness; credit structure and instructional delivery; the review of administrating our Title IV financial aid; proactive communications with federal state and accreditors; teach-outs or closures that are student-centered; and the company's legal position is strong with no open suites or class action lawsuits, keeping our track record clean one. Student outcomes are challenged because of some of the demographics we serve. Over the past 2 years, we've limited the highest-risk students. We've managed our 90/10. We've changed our job placement leadership at the corporate level. And we've implemented financial literacy efforts as a part of our Lincoln Edge in Early Student Engagement programs. Risk mitigation is of critical importance to us to help us stay regulatory sound. Our Lincoln Edge program is designed to engage students early in their stay with us in the areas of financial literacy, basic skills, mentorship, faculty, services, placement, on-boarding and skills assessment. The implementation and the continuing advancement of this program is showing a dramatic positive impact on student persistence. We feel this program will be a differentiating factor for Lincoln in how we manage more challenged populations down the road. The net interrupt rate for the fourth quarter showed an improvement of 40 basis points over what was an already impressive improvement to prior year. Moreover, we saw a 260-basis point improvement for the full year, or a 21.8% net interrupt rate for the year. This is record performance for Lincoln students and bodes well for future graduation and default rates. We recently closed 7 campuses and are consistently -- and constantly assessing the viability of our 43 remaining schools. We mitigate risk by taking a student-oriented approach in these situations, which allow students close to graduating to finish their programs or transfer to other Lincoln schools or peer schools. And we also return aid to those electing not to finish. We've had no student accrediting federal or employee issues related to closing the 7 schools or the fully online programs. Default rates are a constant concern for Lincoln. Our last 2-year CDR rates for the company were in the 18% range. And although we anticipate a slight uptick, we believe we will remain compliant. Our 3-year rates were high, and we expect that they will remain close to the 30% threshold until students moving through our Lincoln Edge program hit their 3-year mark. We are increasing our external public relations. And in 2012, we further honed our partnership approach as we worked with both longtime vendors and also made new associations that will assist the company long term. We're in the process of solidifying a number of relationships that will allow us to strengthen existing programs, find sources of new employer-driven students and also launch new programs. Our recent manufacturing summits in Dallas and Indianapolis were packed and show high interest in our programs that will ultimately teach, especially in CNC machining, which is related directly to the resurgence in the U.S. manufacturing jobs. We have a 30-minute show running on cable channels, which highlights our earlier mentioned new, state-of-the-industry campus in Denver. We launched a new website in January to high acclaim. We've hosted a number of state and federal public officials at our campuses across the country, and we plan to continue publicly promoting Lincoln and our graduates in print publications, web and television news. At this point, I'll turn the time over to Cesar to discuss our 2012 financial results and our guidance for the first quarter and 2013. Cesar?