Brian Meyers
Analyst · Barrington Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead
Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Excuse me. Sorry. As Scott mentioned, we reported sustained momentum throughout the year that achieved all of our 2018 operating and financial targets, which I’ll discuss later. I will also take some time to discuss our upcoming 2019 guidance, but first I would like to begin with highlights from our fourth quarter performance. To begin, revenue for the quarter improved by $2.7 million or 4% over the prior year and on a same-school basis, revenue was higher by $4.8 million or 7.5% over the prior year. Second, total student starts were up 11.6% over the prior year and 12.1% on a same-school basis. The increase in student starts represents the fifth consecutive quarter with start growth, which we attributed to continued investments in marketing, our improved high school admissions program and process. As mentioned earlier, based on the first two months of 2019, we expect student starts growth of approximately 5% for the first quarter. This would represent our sixth consecutive quarter of start growth. Most notably, our 2019 carrying population exceeded prior year by approximately 750 students, which will help drive profitability expectations for 2019. Third, we continue to drive marketing initiatives resulting in approximately $500,000 of additional spend in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the fourth quarter of the prior year, while marketing investments are up, the cost to obtain prospective students has remained relatively flat when compared to the prior year quarter indicating that the marketing dollars are providing return on our investment and should continue to yield start growth during 2019. We are confident that the increased marketing investment has been a strong contributor to our continuous start growth, especially in the adult population. Fourth, as of December 31, 2018, we successfully taught out our Lincoln College of New England campus at Southington, Connecticut. And as part of the teach-out we partnered with growing calls to accept our students which minimized student disruption and eliminated the need for student refunds. Incidentally, the largest closing cost associated with the campus closure was $1.6 million of lease expense, since the lease expires on February 1, 2020. All costs associated with the closing were incurred or recorded for in 2018, therefore there will be no P&L impact in 2019 for this campus. As a reminder, all financial results for this campus has been included in transitional segment for both the current and prior periods. Fifth, bad debt expense for the quarter increased mainly due to higher accounts receivable balances. The increase in accounts receivable is primarily driven by one, higher revenue and student population, higher receivables from graduates due to internal loans with deferred payment plans, and a shift in program mix during the year from a longer duration programs to more condensed programs. And lastly, yesterday, March 5th, we entered into our fourth amendment of the credit agreement with Sterling National Bank. The amendment provides the company with an additional $5 million of working capital needs through October of this year. In addition, the amendment comforts facility one from a revolving line of credit to a term loan extends the maturity of the credit agreement for five years until March 31, 2020 and revises the financial covenants to better align with our projected results for 2019. As of December 31, 2018, the facility one balance was $22.7 million after repaying approximately $2.3 million during the quarter. The repayment funds were derived from the sale of our West Palm Beach property during Q3 of 2018. Proceeds from the sale were originally held in a restricted cash account with Sterling National Bank. In addition, I’ll note on that a new term loan, principal payments are payable monthly through July – payable monthly from July through December each year correspond to a seasonality of our business. Accordingly, principal payments for 2019 will occur between the months of July through December. Now turning to our segment performance for the fourth quarter of 2018. Our Transportation and Skilled Trades segment revenue increased by $2.4 million or 5.1% to $49.4 million for the three months ended December 31, 2018 from $47 million in the prior year comparable period. The increase in revenue is primarily attributed to five consecutive quarters of student start growth, most notably a 6.6% increase in student starts in the current quarter, which helped drive a 5.1% increase in average student population. Operating income remained relatively flat at $8.9 million and $9 million for the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2017 respectively. Now turning to our HOP segment. Revenue increased by $2.4 million or 4% to $19.6 million from $17.2 million in the prior year comparable period. The increase in revenue was mainly attributed to five consecutive quarters of start growth, which drove a 9.8% increase in average student population and an increase in average revenue per student. Operating income increased to $3.7 million for the quarter from $3 million in the prior year. Lastly, our Transitional segment revenue, which includes the Lincoln College of New England at Southington, Connecticut campus in the current quarter and an additional five campuses in the prior year was $1.1 million, compared to $3.2 million in the prior year period. Operating loss was $3.1 million and $1.2 million for the current and prior year quarter respectively. Corporate and other costs were $3.8 million for the three months ended December 31, 2018, as compared to $3 million in the prior year comparable period. The $800,000 increase was primarily driven by an increase in salaries and benefits. Finally, I like to reiterate that we achieved our 2018 guidance provide an overview of the actual results compared to our increased guidance reported in Q3. As a reminder, all 2018 guidance excludes the Transitional segment. First, we anticipate revenue to increase 3% to 6% and we achieved 5.1% increase. Second, student starts were projected to increase 5% to 7% and I am pleased to announce that student starts increased by 7.7%. Third, we anticipated that our 2018 year-end population will be greater than that of the prior year. Accordingly, we ended 2018 with approximately 750 more students over prior year. Lastly, operating income was anticipated to be between $1 million and $3 million. I am happy to announce that we achieved operating income of $2 million. Now I would like to introduce 2019 guidance as following: first, we anticipate revenue in students starts to increase by 3% to 5% excluding the Transitional segment in 2018. Second, we expect to achieve our approximately $2 million of net income. And finally, we expect 2018 EBITDA to be approximately $12 million. With that, I’ll now turn the call back over to the operator, so we can take your questions. Operator?