Earnings Labs

ATA Creativity Global (AACG)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 8, 2013

$1.20

+0.00%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-2.13%

1 Week

+0.24%

1 Month

-7.09%

vs S&P

-7.90%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to ATA’s, fiscal 2014, second quarter and six months financial results conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions). It is my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Carolyne Yu of The Equity Group. Thank you. Ms. Yu. You may begin.

Carolyne Yu

Management

Thank you Crystal and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us. Copies of the press release announcing ATA's fiscal 2014 second quarter results are available at the IR section of the company's website at www.ata.net.cn. As part of this conference call, the company has an accompanying slide presentation available on the company’s website. You are also welcome to contact our office at 212-836-9600 and we will be happy to send you a copy. In addition, a replay of this broadcast will be made available at ATA’s website for the next 90 days. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call and any accompanying information discussed herein contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable as of today, those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ dramatically from those projected. There can be no assurance that those expectations will prove to be correct. Information about the risks associated with investing in ATA is included in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review before making an investment decision. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, changes in market conditions or otherwise, except as required by law. Regarding the disclaimer language, I would also like to refer you to slide two of the conference call presentation for further information. All U.S. dollar amounts in this conference call relating to financial results for the company’s most recent quarter and six months ended September 30, 2013, are converted from RMB using an exchange rate of RMB6.1179 to $1. All historical conversions are accurate as of the time reported unless otherwise noted. The company reports its financial results under U.S. GAAP in RMB and all percentages are calculated in the presentation are based on RMB unless otherwise noted. For those of you following along with the accompanying PowerPoint presentation, there is an overview of the company on slide three. The company's CFO, Mr. Benson Tsang will provide an overview of operational and financial highlights for the second quarter 2014 beginning with slide four. The company's Chairman, Mr. Kevin Ma will then discuss ATA’s outlook and growth strategy for the remainder of fiscal year 2014 before opening the floor up for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to ATA's CFO, Mr. Benson Tsang. Please go ahead, Benson.

Benson Tsang

Management

Thank you Carolyne and good morning everyone. I would like to begin by providing an overview of our financial and operating highlights for second quarter 2014. Slide five shows some operating highlights for second quarter 2014. During the period we delivered 1.7 million billable exams, up 21% from the 1.4 million exams ATA delivered in the prior year period. We saw growth in volumes for the China Futures Association Exam and security guard exam, which were delivered in Shanghai and a few other provinces. However this was offset somewhat by challenges related to decreasing volumes of the Securities Association of China Exam. We have discussed these challenges in prior quarters, but in spite of these headwinds we continue to move forward with innovative products and services that we feel can drive our business in the long term. One example is our mobile testing system or MTS project. We successfully administered the Cambridge Junior English Exam in Hong Kong in July and August. We have also conducted successful trials of this exam in Beijing, Shanghai, Mexico and Spain. Our cooperation with Cambridge thus far has been very positive and rewarding and we look forward to moving forward with this process over the next several months and eventually growing our business in this area. We were pleased to have recently announced the closing of our acquisition of XingWei Institute Hong Kong Limited, a private education technology company that provides training solutions and online mobile training platforms for corporations in China. We believe that combining XingWei’s service offering with those of ATA will strengthen our value proposition to customers, especially those in the private sector. On the right hand side of the presentation is a map of our extensive nationwide network of over 2,900 test centers, which enables ATA to deliver large-scale exams…

Kevin Ma

Management

Thank you Benson. We were pleased with the continued growth in TOEIC and HR Select in the second quarter 2014, as well as the increased exam volumes and the revenue contributions from the security guard exams. As Benson mentioned earlier, our fiscals two quarter is our busiest time of the year. Last month we successfully delivered (ph) 2013 CPA exam, which is only the second time this exam has been delivered via a technology-based platform. ATA is very pleased to have been chosen as a complete service provider of this exam for the second year in a row and we delivered a record 1.52 million exams in late October, an approximately 13% increase over the prior year exam. We’re also anticipating increase in volumes for the China Banking Association exam and many projects related to the campus recruitment during the third quarter 2014. China’s increasingly competitive job and landscape reports, ATA is in a unique portion to help employers hire their most suitable job candidates and to help the job candidates to find a long term sustainable employment. With the recent Xing Wei acquisition we believe combining ATA’s trusted (inaudible) with Xing Wei training platform will be a key growth driver for potential business, especially in the product sector. Side 15 shows our annual guidance for fiscal year 2014, where we are entering the fiscal year 2014 guidance provided in May and expect the net revenues to be between RMB403 million and RMB423 million and the non-GAAP net income to be between RMB37 million and RMB47 million. Before I move on to our growth strategies, I will like to say a few words regarding the newest member of our senior management team, ATA’s new CEO Mr. Cheng-Yaw Sun. Our team at ATA feels very fortunate to be working with someone…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from the line of Ms. Ella Ji. Please proceed ma’am.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations on a strong quarter. My first question is with regard to your Xing Wei acquisition. I’m wondering if management can talk about, with this acquisition if there is going to be any changes in the business direction in ATA and also with the acquisition, how do you think that Xing Wei will help with your existing business here. Thank you.

Benson Tsang

Management

Thank you for the question Ella. Regarding the acquisition, ATA acquired Xing Wei with strong belief in Xing Wei’s current presence in the pipe etcetera is an asset. We believe by acquiring Xing Wei we can combine its current business into ATA and we can benefit both companies and at the current plan, we believe we can actually make use of the content and the platform from both companies and we can serve our private corporation clients better. So in the near future we anticipate our private sector business will benefit from it. In the longer term as we just finished the acquisition with Xing Wei, currently ATA, our Chairman Mr. Xiaofeng Ma and the senior management team together with Mr. Sun, we are exploring and discussing the new direction moving forward and we will be ready to share with everybody in Q3.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Good. I’m looking forward to that. Also Benson I wonder if you can talk about if you’re going to acquire any major integration costs in the rest of the year. I did notice that you mentioned the full year met revenue in the income guidance, but just wondering if we should anticipate any material costs coming from this integration.

Benson Tsang

Management

For this acquisition, the consideration for the acquisition was approximately $3.2 million U.S. and in terms of other related acquisition costs, it’s very limited. It’s only in the range of $100,000 and as far as the integration, we do not anticipate the company will incur additional expenses or additional significant expenses in the integration process.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Good. And then talking about Cambridge, your new program, it’s great to see that you have achieved some initial success with your MTS this term. I wonder if you can also talk about when do you anticipate Cambridge, the young to start contributing material revenues for the company and can you provide us if there is any seasonality in this test and also your anticipated amount in levels. Thank you.

Benson Tsang

Management

Sure Ella. Mr. Ma just now mentioned about the status. We finished trial tests for Cambridge in Hong Kong, Spain and Mexico mainly and according to the feedback on Cambridge and their local partners, they are very happy with the result, both the technology and the way we monitor the test remotely from Shanghai. The feedback we got from Cambridge, they fully intend to rollout official tests starting calendar year Q4, which Mr. Ma mentioned we anticipate by the end of 2013 we will conclude a conversion contract of Cambridge and we’ll start rolling out in those three cities and country I just mentioned, which is Hong Kong, Spain and Mexico. We will also start some trial tests for Argentina in November and there will be other countries we will roll out the trial test for Cambridge in accordance with Cambridge schedule. In terms of the seasonality, we do not anticipate there will be significant seasonality impact on this particular test and we understand for Cambridge, this English program is offered to students throughout the year and the students, once they finish the course they will take the test immediately. So we do not anticipate seasonality to impact this particular test.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Yes, and also Benson can you talk about your anticipated margin (inaudible) project there?

Benson Tsang

Management

Sure. This particular product or this MTS project, the main cost to this project is the R&D cost, which you have already incurred. So going forward we anticipate this particular MTS project, that the margin will be north of 85%.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Great. And then switching gears to TOEIC and HR Select, I noticed the growth rate for this quarter sort of slowed from our last quarter. I did know that this quarter is slow even for you. So can you talk about your anticipated growth rate for the rest of the year?

Benson Tsang

Management

Sure. We anticipate on a full year basis. Our private sector which include TOEIC and HR Select, we anticipate we’ll achieve a 25% growth. In Q2 we believe it’s a timing issue, because of some application time. Managed students are taking times off and also even people in the private sector or in the job markets. So Q1 we achieved over 30% growth and Q2 we achieved about 11%. So overall in the first half we achieved 25% and for Q3 and Q4 we anticipate we can also maintain a growth of 25%.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Great. And last question from me, so you still have more than 46 million of cash on your balance sheet. Can you talk about your use of cash? You made some acquisitions, but other than this will you consider like a dividend. Any thoughts would be helpful?

Benson Tsang

Management

Sure. At the current moment we do not have any dividend plans. In fact ATA believe we are in a year where we’ll consider seriously how to expand the business. Particularly now we have a new project MPS and we see if its a novelty proven and its effective by Cambridge, we see there is a lot of potential we can write on this technology and go overseas. And also with this technology we also believe we have good opportunities within China. We can make use of this technology and grow business in the private sector. So until we work with our new CEO and also Kevin to work out the new direction, we will retain the cash and through some thought a new plan may come out, which we believe we’ll have ready and share with you in Q3.

Ella Ji

Analyst

Great. That’s all my questions. I will get back to the queue. Thank you.

Benson Tsang

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions).

Kevin Ma

Management

Thanks again to all of you for joining us. We are looking forward to speaking with you again during our third quarter 2014 financial results call in February. As always your welcome, any visitors to our office in Beijing. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that ends our presentation for today. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.