Bill Foley
Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Shannon. I am very pleased with the execution our team delivered through the third quarter as we position our portfolio through continued value creation, benefiting all of Cannae’s shareholders. A significant highlight of the quarter was the success of our Dun & Bradstreet management team has achieved just eight months into our turnaround. Led by Anthony Jabbour and Steve Daffron’s leadership, the D&B team has successfully executed cost actions on $192 million of annualized savings, through September 30, 2019 as part of D&B’s $200 million cost reduction plan. These cost actions have driven sharp improvement to D&B’s profitability, which are now more in line with its peers. I am confident that we will surpass our cost savings goals and we'll update you on our outlook for future cost saves on our fourth quarter call. In addition to the reorganization of D&B’s sales structure and compensation plan, that is also having a positive impact on our new sales revenues, both of which experienced an acceleration in the third quarter. For the third quarter ending September 30, 2019, D&B generated adjusted revenue of $450 million, an increase of 8.5% versus the prior year quarter. Lattice, our acquisition contributed about 1.1% of the increase and moving some larger contracts forward from the fourth quarter also contributed. Nonetheless, we achieved more than 4% organic revenue growth. Equally impressive, adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2019 totaled $194 million, a 52.8% increase over the prior year quarter, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 43.1%, a 1,280 basis point improvement compared to prior year quarter. Rick will review the D&B third quarter results in more detail in a moment. Looking forward, D&B’s extensive proprietary data continues to provide opportunities to further drive revenue growth through cross-selling existing products and services and bringing to market new product offerings as we work to exploit opportunities across D&B’s extensive customer base. Before I turn the call over to Brent, I would also like to announce that we've added two experienced executives to Trasimene Capital Management's leadership team. First Rick Massey has joined Trasimene as a Senior Managing Director. I have known Rick for almost 17 years and he is an experienced M&A practitioner, and an accomplished investor. In addition, we have brought on Brad Ridgeway, as our Restaurant Management Operator who will oversee all of our Restaurant Group and assist them in optimizing their cost structure, improving their operations, and supporting improved future monetization events. I couldn't be more pleased to have Brad and Rick join our team. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Brent.