Earnings Labs

Stride, Inc. (LRN)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 26, 2016

$95.35

+2.99%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the K12 First Quarter Fiscal 2017 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Mike Kraft, Vice President of Finance for K12. Thank you, you may begin.

Mike Kraft

Analyst

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to K12’s first quarter earnings call for fiscal year 2017. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that in addition to historical information, certain comments made during this conference call may be considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements contained in our earnings release and the company’s periodic filings with the SEC. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. In addition, this conference call contains time-sensitive information that reflects management’s best analysis only as of the day of this live call. K12 does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. For further information concerning risks and uncertainties that could materially affect financial and operational performance and results, please refer to our reports filed with the SEC, including without limitation cautionary statements made in K12’s 2016 annual report on Form 10-K. These filings can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.k12.com. In addition to disclosing financial results in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the U.S., or GAAP, we will discuss certain information that is considered non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial information to the most closely comparable GAAP information was included in our earnings release and is also posted on our website. This call is open to the public and is being webcast. The call will be available for replay for 30 days. With me on today’s call is Stuart Udell, Chief Executive Officer, and James Rhyu, Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will answer any questions you may have. I’d like to now turn the call over to Stuart. Stuart?

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us on the call today. This morning I want to provide you with our guidance for fiscal 2017 as well as an update of our cap date enrollment. For fiscal 2017 we expect total revenue in the range of $885 million to $915 million. We believe that demand for Online and Blended Learning options remained strong. We saw this demand result in an increase of 3.9% in managed public school enrollment to more than 108,000 students. While fall enrollments continue to be very important and provide a strong directional indicator of our full year revenue, the reality is that two thirds of our partner schools are funded by mechanisms that are tied to alternative measures. These mechanisms include multiple campaigns, average failure attendants, average failure enrollment or membership and accounting periods. This mix allows providers like K12 to align with schools to drive second semester enrollments and further build upon last year's successful retention efforts to both positively influence student outcomes and financials for the year. Again, fall enrollment is still by far the most important season and does provide a directional indicator of our full year revenue. Importantly, we have returned to enrollment growth for the first time in three years. We believe that's occurred for a number of reasons. First, our strong commitment to academics, we continue to partner closely with our independent charter or school boards to ensure that enrollment growth was balanced with school performance. We worked hard to turnaround those schools with the biggest needs and to raise the academic performance of all the schools we support. As a result, this year we faced fewer academic related headwinds and schools we manage were able to increase enrollments in many states where they weren’t able to do so in…

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Thanks Stuart, and good morning, everybody. I want to start out with a quick review of our new disclosures that Stuart already highlighted. As you all know in our release and as we've previously discussed, we will begin disclosing both adjusted operating income and adjusted EBITDA. We will also provide guidance on adjusted operating income. The only difference between the adjusted numbers and the non-adjusted numbers is stock based compensation. As we move towards more performance-based incentive compensation, some of our stock based comp will be more variable in how we account for it. So it is more difficult to predict the period in which it will hit. Therefore, depending on the actual stock based comp we account for this year, our operating income number may have more variability relative to our guidance. So while providing you with the adjusted amounts you can see the underlying results without this variability. Also as I mentioned last quarter, we have changed how we are talking about our capital expenditures. Historically, we've defined CapEx to include curriculum software development infrastructure and computer leasing costs. Including these costs in our CapEx calculation was confusing for some of our investors when they tried to understand how much capital we deployed and tie that back to our cash flow statement. So we believe this will be a much cleaner way to talk to you about our capital expenditures, nice and easily tied in now to our cash flow statement and obviously calculate free cash flow. Now let's turn to a review of our results for the quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $229.1 million an increase of 3.6% from the year ago quarter. Revenue growth was largely driven by increases in our managed public school programs and our institutional business, somewhat offset by declines in our…

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Thank you. We'd be happy to entertain any questions that you might have at this time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Corey Greendale with First Analysis. Please proceed with your question.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Good morning.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Good morning.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Congratulations on getting back to a growth mode. A few questions, so first of all, interesting point, the cap in some states, as we think about the longer term growth rate do those caps, do some of those caps kind of naturally increase the time or is some sort of political change required in order to lift the cap that you are talking about?

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

I think the answer is both. If we at least look to history they are based that as they gain comfort with new programs, that naturally lifted caps over time and then certainly we work very closely with our partner charter school and District Boards to help in that process as well. So it's a little bit of both historically and we certainly think that that's a pretty good indicator for how it will continue to work.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

And I'm not sure if you'd looked at it this way, but can you give us some sense of what percent of your managed program enrollment is in schools that have capped?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, I think it's just I think over 50% have capped. Some sort or another and again I think as Stuart mentioned some of those are self imposed i.e. the board really want to keep a growth trajectory that they feel comfortable with and all those are sort of more regulatory caps, but in aggregate those caps are just a tick over 50.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Okay and then on the non-managed, you mentioned the impact of the Georgia closure, I think it has over 2000 families were impacted. If we try to figure out what those would have been and excluding that should we just assume 2000 more students are, I imagine some of the families might have had more than one student, or how should we think about that?

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, I mean, you know, it's always hard to identify the single client, but yes, I mean 2000 [indiscernible] for the impact that Georgia singly would have had.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Okay, and can you give us a little bit more on what drove the strong increase in revenue for non-managed program enrollment and what we should expect for the rest of the year?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, that's, so the non-managed per enrollment was really sort of a mix for Agora for example, which is part of the most relevant example our mix or our service portfolio in Agora is just, it's broader than in many of our other non-managed programs. So this year I think as Stuart mentioned in our last call, we sort of expanded our service portfolio to them and that will sort of create a higher non-managed revenue per enrollment. So for the balance of the year, you know, what you see I think is that will drive revenue per enrollment up, certainly year-over-year, probably for the full year though, because just of the way that the mix for Agora front loads a little bit, you won't see the amount of increase for the rest of the year as much as you see this year. So Agora just happens to which drives some of that increased pay take service is that really Q1 focused like the marketing acquisition and things like that, that don't recur as well to the same extent.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

And on the demand, I just, could you put a little kind of punch in so what you were saying is that, should the expectation be that revenue per managed enrollment is about flat for the year?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, excuse me, I think revenue per managed enrollment for the full year actually will be, we believe that it will be slightly over flat. So may be a little bit better than flat for this year and then sort of I think the ongoing rate environment will be a little more challenging than we've seen in past years, may be a little more consistent with what we see this year.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Part of that revenue per enrollment flat that has a lot to do with mix as new programs come on typically at lower average rates and build over time.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, I get it. And then on the institutional software business, sorry if you gave this, but what was the growth excluding the acquisition?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Sorry, I did not give that, but the institutional business did have about double-digit growth even excluding that acquisition.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Okay and is that attributable to your new products or to just a better environment or what do you attribute that growth to?

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, sorry it’s a little bit of combination. You know, we did see some good new products revenue, we had some good mix.

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Yes, we're seeing some interest in some of our new complex programs, the combination of district interest in blended programs, our career pathway programs and kind of other large complex enterprise opportunities.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Okay and then just one last one from me and on the cash flow I just want to make sure, you didn’t change how you are funding for the computers or you just changed to that…?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

That's right. The cash flow itself won't change. The cash flow statement, the way we budget things won't change and the way that we finance computers has not changed.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

And James, for the rest of the year as I understand, I think I understand the impact of the cash flow in Q1, as we look to the rest of the year, if EBITDA is growing, should we expect cash flow to grow commensurate with that?

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Excluding the impact of any timing related items, yes. This year we did get a low sort of negative impact in Q1 with some time related income which will flow through sort of for the full year, but I think excluding that yes.

Corey Greendale

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Okay great, thanks very much.

James Rhyu

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Welcome.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Henry Chien

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Hey, guy, I am calling in for Jeff. I just wanted to have a followup question to the [indiscernible]. In terms of the enrollment caps do you have a sense of what growth would be like if the enrollments caps weren’t in place?

Stuart Udell

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Well, as we said, we did hit our caps in 16 states, some of them very early in August. So certainly we had some lost opportunity there that we hope to access and realize over time.

James Rhyu

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Yes, it's hard and you can see actually what happens as Stuart mentioned some of those caps get hit pretty early in the season and we're not actively seeking enrollments. So it's really hard to say how much of the trajectory of growth would have occurred throughout the rest of the season when they sort of shut it down mid season. But certainly and Stu, you just extrapolate what Stuart said in just even a couple of states it was more than 1000 or so enrollments and I don’t think it's a pure extrapolation through 16 states, but certainly it was probably in the thousands.

Henry Chien

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Okay great. And just looking out through the bids for the year, any update on the political environment for moving those caps or expanding any, just trying to get a sense of any potential for additional growth in enrollment or either way? Thanks.

James Rhyu

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Well, you know we are obviously always working in an ongoing process with our school boards and district partners on those caps, but that's an ongoing process that's irrespective of what's going on in the political environment. Obviously we'll see there'll be some changes federally pretty soon. We don't expect that any of the national election issues should have any particularly impactful, any particular impact on our operations because we're primarily running a business that's state driven. So, you know, we continue to watch all of the local election closely and work with folks to make sure that we maintain a positive environment for virtual and blended programs.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

And Henry, just to make sure this, we actually question appropriately that, so in the year, this year fiscal 2017 we don’t see any cap issues easing up like normally for the year the caps would be set. So, any cap changes that we sort of probably this year will really impact for next year.

Henry Chien

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Okay, got it. Okay, and just last one from me, in terms of the institutional business, can you just give an update on some of the growth drivers there, are you still seeing managed and non-managed, is it the curriculum that you are seeing a lot of demand for, any kind of update you can give there, that would be great?

James Rhyu

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Well, you know, obviously as we mentioned earlier some of the growth in non-managed comes from expanded services with Agora. We've also had some expanded service with other significant non-managed, existing non-managed providers. We've not seen really any recent new shift to non-managed from our currently managed programs which is terrific, nor do we expect much of that to happen on a forward basis. And then as I mentioned just a couple of moments ago, in terms of other growth drivers, we see a lot of interest in blended learning programs, you know, how do we help school district implement programs that, the variety of scale but of course world language across career pathway opportunities, across AP and even across kind of targeted remediation. We really continue to work with district in a customized way to meet their needs, but fortunately due to our breadth of kind of our library, our content, there really isn’t too much customization we have to do, but just proceeded to be that. So we work very closely in a solutions oriented way to meet their needs.

Henry Chien

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Got it, okay. Thanks for the color.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · Henry Chien with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Thank you, Henry.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Stuart Udell, there are no further questions. I'd like to turn the floor back to you for any final remarks.

Stuart Udell

Analyst · First Analysis. Please proceed with your question

Well, I just want to once again thank you everyone for their time and we will continue to work hard to make a difference for both students and investors. Thank you. We look forward to talking next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.