Brian E. Mueller
Analyst · Merrill Lynch
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining Grand Canyon University's fourth quarter fiscal year 2014 conference call. In the fourth quarter of 2013, enrollments grew by 14.1% and net revenues grew by 15%. New enrollments grew in the low double digits and operating margins are at 25.2% for the fourth quarter 2013. We had another successful quarter, and I want to thank our faculty and staff for their hard work, the commitment to innovation and change and their continued loyalty to the university. Our faculty and staff turnover rates are at all-time lows. We're excited to announce, as a result of the efforts of the administration, faculty and staff, Grand Canyon received the following awards in 2013: the Impact Awards from the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce in the categories of Economic Driver and Business of the Year; the Gold Stevie Award for the Company of the Year in the Services division; the Community Service Hero Award from the City of Phoenix; and the Industry Leaders of Arizona Education Company of the Year award. I want to give you a few updates on our traditional campus. We've started fall 2013 with approximately 4,000 new students, bringing the total to approximately 28 -- 8,200 students. We raised the minimum GPA admission requirement to 3.0 and the average incoming GPAs of the admitted new students were approximately 3.4. Approximately 50% of the new students are studying in the science areas. Based upon our current rate of applications for fall of 2015, we are expecting approximately 5,500 new students, which would bring our total student body to approximately 10,500. About 3,000 of the new students will be from Arizona and about 2,000 will be from California. The percentage of all students who want to live on campus is going up and as a result, we're building 2 new residence halls. One will be a new apartment-style residence hall, which will house 1,000 students and the other will be a traditional style residence hall, which will house 650 students. In addition, we are building a new 4-story classroom building, 2 new restaurants, a new bookstore, and we are rebuilding our arena to seat 7,200 for games and 8,000 for concerts. Planning for the East Valley campus is going well. We are on schedule to open up in the fall of 2015 with approximately 2,500 students and grow to about 10,000. The campus will provide a full residential experience from the beginning and include everything the main campus has, with the exception of intercollegiate athletics and theater. One of the most important current initiatives of the university is to extend the reach of our STEM programs. We are adding information technology and computer science degrees in the fall of 2014, and we're working on 3 engineering degrees; electrical, biomedical and mechanical, for the fall of 2015. We are also excited to announce that we are launching our doctoral degree in a nurse practitioner program, which will be our fourth doctoral degree. Grand Canyon's brand is growing rapidly, partly as a result of a very vibrant campus life. Classrooms and residence halls are at capacity. Chapel services have 3,500 students in attendance. We are just finishing our fourth major theater production this year and every performance has been sold out. Our premier praise band was chosen to perform on the national scene as part of the Rock & Worship Roadshow. Our intercollegiate debate team has performed very well in their first year of competition. Our athletic teams are performing above expectation. Wrestling is 14 and 5 in dual matches. Our men's and women's track teams, swimming teams, tennis teams, golf teams and our men's volleyball team are competing very well on a national level during this winter season. Our women's basketball team is on pace to win 20 games in their first year and our men's team is currently in second place in the Western Athletic Conference. Every man's home game has been a sellout. In addition to all the activity on the campus, the university has been involved with their immediate community. We are involved in more than 120 community events and projects throughout the year. We've put on a fall festival in October that draws more than 6,000 people to campus and popular gift drive at Christmas and Easter help brighten those seasons for many underprivileged families. Our faculty, staff and students also go out in the surrounding neighborhoods to participate in university-sponsored programs such as Serve the City, Canyon Kids, 12 Months of Service and The Run to Fight Children's Cancer. In September 2013, the university launched a free mentoring and tutoring program for students at nearby Alhambra High School in hopes of raising the math, reading skills and confidence of students at the Phoenix school, many of whom come from disadvantaged families. Our students are serving as tutors and mentors to these high school students and the results thus far have been extremely positive. We anticipate expanding this program to other high schools as part of our K-12 outreach program within our communities. Turning to our online campus, as most of you know, our plan is to grow this campus at 6% to 8% per year. Over time, our online campus will be primarily a graduate campus with our traditional ground campus primarily an undergraduate campus. Currently 43.5% of our working adults are studying at the graduate level. These students are attracted to full-time faculty, small class size, the interactive and collaborative intellectual environment and the highly service-oriented counseling teams. The highest quality students at the university are doctoral students, master students, RN to BSN students and our traditional campus students. These students have high graduation rates, low bad debt expense and low default rate on students loans. These students are 63% of our total student body, which is an increase of 460 basis points year-over-year. The growing number of high-quality students have had a tremendous impact on key metrics, including a reduction in our overall 2-year cohort default rate. Although the 2-year default rate for the period that ended September 30, 2013, is no longer going to be released the Department of Ed, based on information that we received from the lenders, our 2-year default rate for this period is approximately 7%, which is down from 12% in the prior year. One of the trends in higher education is that it is becoming more regional and students want to attend a university closer to their home. This is true for traditional students, as well as working adult students. Our brand has grown in strength in the Southwest, which is where the majority of our growth is. In the past 12 months, we have grown 21 -- 25.1% in Arizona, 52.4% in California, 30.8% in Colorado, 43% in Nevada and 42.9% in New Mexico. Now turning to the results of operations. Net revenues were $162.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of $21.1 million, or 15% from the $141.3 million in the prior-year period. Operating margin for quarter 4 2013 was 25.2% compared to 23.5% for the same period in 2012. The operating margin without the effect of state contribution made in lieu of state income taxes was 26.7%. It's important to note that tuition room and board has been frozen for 5 years on our ground traditional campus and there was no increase in tuition for the online campus this past year. Net income was $26.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to $20.9 million in the prior-year period. After-tax margin was 16.1% compared to 14.8% for the same period in 2012. It should be noted that the difference between the operating margin before income taxes and the after-tax margin of 16.1% is primarily money that we pay in taxes that goes back to the taxpayer. Given our relatively low default rates and our relatively low Pell usage and the high tax amounts that we pay, we are significant net plus to taxpayer. Instructional cost and services grew from $58.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 to $68 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of $9.2 million, or 15.6%. This increase is primarily due to the increase in number of faculty and staff to support the increasing number of students attending the university. As a percent of revenue, IC&S increased 0.2% to 41.8% from 41.6%. We are extremely pleased that bad debt expense as a percent of revenue decreased again to 3.1% from 3.2% in the prior year quarter. Employee and faculty compensation and related expenses including share-based compensation decreased 60 basis points between years due to our ability to leverage our administrative personnel across an increasing revenue base, partially offset by increased use of full-time faculty and higher employee benefit cost between periods. Instructional supplies and dues, fees and subscriptions increased 90 basis points. Depreciation and amortization expense stayed flat. Admissions advisory and related expenses as a percentage of net revenue increased 30 basis points from 16.4% in fourth quarter of '12 to 16.1% in fourth quarter of 2013. This decrease was primarily due to our ability to leverage our admissions advisory personnel across an increasing revenue base, which was partially offset by increased benefit cost between periods. Advertising as a percent of net revenue increased 10 basis points from 9.2% in quarter 4 of '12 to 9.3% in quarter 4 of 2013, primarily due to increased brand advertising focused on the Southwest U.S. region. Marketing and promotional expense as a percent of net revenue stayed flat over the prior-year period at 0.9% in both quarter 4 of 2012 and 2013. General and administrative cost as a percentage of revenue decreased from 8.3% in quarter 4 of 2012 to 6.7% in quarter 4 of 2013, primarily due to employee compensation and related expenses, including share-based compensation, decreasing between years, as well as a decrease in legal cost between years. Interest expense increased $0.3 million over quarter 4 of 2012 as a result of the expansion of our credit facility in December of 2012. As a result of the above, net income increased $20.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 to $26.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. With that I would like to turn it over to Dan Bachus, our CFO, to give a little more color on our 2013 fourth quarter, talk about changes in the income statement, balance sheet and other items.