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Entravision Communications Corporation (EVC)

Q2 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2009

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Entravision Communications Corporation second quarter 2009 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today’s presentation. (Operator instructions) For your information, this conference call is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Walter Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Ulloa?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you, Vijay. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Entravision’s second quarter 2009 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Philip Wilkinson, our Chief Operating Officer and Chris Young, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin I must inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to our SEC filings for a list of risks and uncertainties that could impact actual results. In addition, this call is the property of Entravision Communications Corporation. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the expressed written consent of Entravision Communications Corporation is strictly prohibited. Also this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures in today’s press release. The press release is available on the company’s Web site and was filed with the SEC in a Form 8-K. In addition with the announced sale of the company’s Outdoor Division at March 31, 2008 Outdoor was classified as a discontinued operation and the results of operations are separately reported for all periods presented. We continue to operate in a very challenging environment and our results reflect the soft local and national advertising markets that are impacting virtually all media businesses. Despite the macro challenges, we are aggressively managing our costs, capitalizing on nontraditional revenue opportunities and focusing on driving audience share. Our cost initiatives are on track to generate approximately $20 million in savings in 2009, and we continue to review our operations for additional efficiencies. Our assets remain well-positioned in key Hispanic markets, and we are committed to ensuring our stations have the proper support to deliver quality content…

Chris Young

Management

Thank you, Walter, and good afternoon everyone. The company sold the Outdoor Advertising business in May of 2008 to Lamar Advertising for $101.5 million, including an adjustment for working capital and no longer has Outdoor operations. In accordance with FAS 144 accounting for the impairment or disposal of long lived assets the company reported the results of the Outdoor operations in discontinued operations within the consolidated statements of operations. As the Outdoor unit has been included in discontinued ops, the following results do not include the Outdoor segment. As Walter has discussed net revenue for the quarter was $48.7 million down 23%. Operating expenses decreased $7.3 million to $29.6 million and consolidated adjusted EBITDA decreased 27% to $16.3 million. Free cash flow which we define as consolidated adjusted EBITDA minus capital expenditures, cash interest, cash taxes plus interest income was $5.2 million or $0.06 per share. Operating expenses for the quarter decreased to $29.6 million from $36.9 million, a decrease of $7.3 million or 20%. Excluding non-cash compensation expense, operating expenses for the quarter decreased to $29.3 million from $36.5 million, a decrease of $7.2 million or 20%. The decrease was primarily attributable to a decrease in expenses associated with the decrease in net revenue along with the various costs control measures that we implemented earlier this year. Corporate expenses for the quarter decreased to $3.4 million from $4.5 million, a decrease of $1.1 million or 25%. Excluding non-cash compensation expense, corporate expenses for the quarter decreased to $3 million from $4.0 million, a decrease of $1.0 million or 25%. The decrease was again primarily attributable to the various costs control measures we implemented earlier this year. Cash interest expense for the quarter was $9.2 million. Cash capital expenditures for the quarter were $1.3 million. CapEx for the year will be between $5.0 million and $6.0 million. EPS for the second quarter of 2009 applicable to common stockholders was negative $0.02 a share compared to an EPS applicable to common shareholders of $0.12 per share in the second quarter of 2008. Turning to our balance sheet, as of June 30, 2009, our total debt was $365.5 million and our trailing 12 month EBITDA as adjusted was $58.1 million. Our total debt to EBITDA as adjusted was 6.9 times versus a maximum leverage covenant as defined in our recently amended credit agreement of 6.75 times at 06/30/09. Cash on the books as of June 30, 2009 was $18.8 million. The company also announced that it repurchased from Univision Communications approximately 900,000 shares of Entravision Class A common stock for approximately $500,000 in the second quarter of 2009. As of August 01, 2009, the total shares outstanding for Entravision was 83,624,234 across all classes of shares. This concludes our formal remarks. Walter, Philip and I would be happy to take your questions. Vijay?

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from James Dix from Wedbush. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just a couple of questions, maybe I'll break them up a little bit and maybe come around for a second round I guess. Walter, I think you talked a little bit about pacing by month for radio. I'm not sure I heard them by month for TV. If you have those that might be interesting. And then any outlook for pacings in the third quarter, what’s the outlook for TV and radio at this point? I guess second, it looked like radio did not accelerate maybe quite as much as expected in the second quarter. It kind of the declines – decreased by around the same amount as the TV group. Is there anything going on there in terms of revenue catalysts? I guess I'll stop there. I'll let you guys take that and then I had a couple of follow-ups.

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

Okay, James, this Philip. How are you doing? James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Pretty good. How are you?

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

Good, thank you. Pacings – actually I think you said pacings but you may have meant we have fared through the individual months in second quarter for TV because we not going too far out here in terms of projections but April we were down approximately 32% for the TV combined, local and national. That improved in May to down minus 28% and we actually improved that 10 points in June to minus 18% on the TV side and that's where we finished blended minus 26. July is in the – I guess it finished but it was about minus 20 and small change. August pace, it is too hard to tell in August. We just started laying in a lot of local business. So it is not – I don’t think it’s going to be an accurate number. But we – overall, I can say that we – things are improving. It is still tough out there but it is not as bleak as it was two months ago, that’s for sure. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Is that similar for radio? I know you gave the monthlies for the second quarter but how is radio looking going forward?

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

June was improved, improved actually about 5 points over the April, May finish. And July is slightly improved. But similar analysis in terms of where we think things are improving, and we feel better than we did certainly couple months ago and across most all categories. We had travel and leisure improving by June and in July we improved slightly in services, much improved in retail. Telecom has been a tough one for us. Health care has been holding. And auto I think Walter gave you the specifics on the tiers and where we finished but I think we can honestly say that we feel we have bottomed out in second quarter on auto which is a big part of our business. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Right.

Walter Ulloa

Management

And we have seen, as a result of I think just the bottoming as well as the Cash for Clunker program we have seen a rise in this past July certainly in the enthusiasm and the traffic that our car dealers have experienced. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Have you gotten in material dollars on the air related to that program in terms of dealers promoting it or educating the public?

Walter Ulloa

Management

I would say that we have and we have been particularly active with this program. We were working on this program a month and a half ago and trying to educate all of our GMs and sales managers as best we could about the program. Certainly as we got closer to the program, the information was better and there was some confusion the first week as you know but that seems to clearing up and we think we are – we expect the energy in traffic that we saw in July to certainly continue into August. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Okay. And just following up on the radio side. Did that improve the way you thought it would in the second quarter? And is the outlook for improving kind of similar for radio and TV as you look forward?

Walter Ulloa

Management

I would say it is. As Philip pointed out we felt like we hit the bottom in the second quarter and it does feel like third quarter is moving in a better direction. It’s still too early for us to make any predictions about the second half, but it feels like – it feels better certainly than the first half. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Okay. I just wanted to step forward to 2010 for a second. Do you have any way of quantifying or giving some color on some of the catalysts that you think you are going to see next year that might be a little bit less dependent on how robust the recovery is. I'm talking specifically about World Cup which you mentioned, but I guess you also will have increases in retransmission revenue and then political, obviously should be better next year than this year. Any color you can give on those and any other things that you think are important?

Walter Ulloa

Management

We do – part of what we look at is certainly 2006 World Cup numbers as well as 2006 political. We’ve already started to study those. We have tried to identify where the races are going to be in our markets. Certainly, Texas is going to be a big political market for us with Senator Hutchison running for governor. So we expect it to be very active in our markets. World cup; what we do there is we look at all of our different categories and advertisers that we saw in 2006. Obviously automotive is in a different place in 2010 and it will be we anticipate. So we are forecasting continuing weakness in that category, but not to the degree that we’ve seen in 2009 but not as robust, perhaps, as we saw in 2006. And then in retrains, as I said earlier, we certainly look forward to that revenue stream growing in 2010, and it does ramp up in the early years of our contracts. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: And I just had one other follow-up. Chris, it looks like expenses are down around 20% year over year. Are they tracking to be down that much for the full year, or are you going to be lapping a little bit of the expense cuts that you did last year and maybe full year expenses maybe down more like in the mid-teens. Just trying to get some color as to where you are in terms of your expense base.

Chris Young

Management

Yes, James, they are down 20% for Q2. We are not in the business of giving guidance anymore. But I think with respect to the second half of the year, the expenses will still be in place and they will still be in place as well for Q1 of next year, if you recall large expenses that we put out towards the ends of Q1 this year that will continue to play through and have an impact on OpEx through Q1 of next year. But as far as the 20% is concerned, I can’t tell you whether that’s going to be the run rate number or not. James Dix – Wedbush Morgan Securities: Okay. All right, thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from John Kornreich from Sandler Capital. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Yes, I have a lot of questions. Let’s just start first on news. What is the – in the 18 to 49 category or 18 to 34 whatever you consider the key, early 6 p.m. type news and the late news, what’s the overall percent increase year over year?

Walter Ulloa

Management

This is Walter, John. In early local news in our local people meter markets which is what all we have to look at right now for July. We saw a combined increase of 40% in adult 18 to 34, 33% in adult 18 to 49, and 29% in adults 25 to 54. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: This is just news year over year?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Yes, that's early local news. In our late local news we saw an increase of 33% adult 18 to 34 in July in our local people meter markets. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: In which age group?

Walter Ulloa

Management

18 to 34. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: And you had 18 to 49.

Walter Ulloa

Management

We were flat 18 to 49. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: What was that?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Flat. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: I can’t hear you.

Walter Ulloa

Management

I said we were flat. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: I thought you said a lot.

Walter Ulloa

Management

No. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: In retrans, you did 1.9 million in the first quarter, 2.9 million in the second. When do you hit your stride? Is it fourth quarter or sometime next year?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, I'll just comment on it briefly then Chris may have something to add to that. We are not going to disclose the information on retrans other than what we saw in the quarter. I will tell you that in the second quarter, we did see some catch up from the first quarter because contracts were signed late in the second, but they were retro to January 1. So the second quarter includes mostly second quarter retransmission revenue with some catch up from the first quarter. Chris, do you want to add to that?

Chris Young

Management

Yes, there were catch up payments, John, in the second quarter. So that was a bit elevated over the first quarter. There are a lot of moving parts to the retransmission calculations. So I think the only safe way that the plate is weighted out until you have four quarters under your belt and that is your number. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: But when I see what the fourth quarter is, whatever it is, will that be pretty much what the run rate will be for two, three years?

Chris Young

Management

That’s still a tough one to call, just because there are a lot of moving parts to the agreement that we have. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. In radio your overall margin in the first half is roughly 30%. Is it fair to say that the margin in Los Angeles is much lower than that? Is there a margin in LA?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Yes, there is a margin in LA. We are looking at the numbers right now but based on the information we have, the margin in LA is right about the number that you described. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: It is? Wow. You mean the 30% not a lot lower?

Walter Ulloa

Management

No, 30%. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: That’s very surprising. It’s great. By what percentage is your head count down from a year ago?

Chris Young

Management

About 12%. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay.

Walter Ulloa

Management

12% or roughly 200 people. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. And in terms of cash interest, I assume that the big bumps from first to second quarter is like $6 million to $9 million, whatever it was $5.5 million to $9 million was the new agreement and that therefore $9 million a quarter is where you should stay?

Chris Young

Management

That’s right John. The amendment that we did in the first quarter was effective on March 16, so you really only had a couple weeks at the increased rate in applicable to first quarter. The bump would be in large part the incremental rate. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: And when does that agreement end, and your interest will go back down again?

Chris Young

Management

The term loan or the swaps we had to fix the debt? John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Both.

Chris Young

Management

The swaps unwind in full October of next year, and the term loan matures in June of 2013. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. So we are going to stay around 9 million roughly a quarter into late next year?

Chris Young

Management

That’s correct. And at the current debt level. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: When you said your debt was 365, is that net of the 19 million cash?

Chris Young

Management

No, that is gross. There is no more netting as per the new amended facility. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. All of your debt is bank debt, is that correct?

Chris Young

Management

$363.5 million of it is bank debt and we have about $2 million in old financing notes. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: And do I remember correctly that virtually all of that $363 million is due all at once at the end of 2013?

Chris Young

Management

That's right. It is a balloon amortization. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital:

Chris Young

Management

There is no – the only mandatory debt pay downs that are in the amended facility are the excess cash flow sweep mechanisms that were put in place with the amendment. So that’s 75% of essentially free cash flow less working capital change needs to be towards bank payment. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Last question, and an important one. It looks to me – I know Univision hasn't announced their second quarter, I did look at their first quarter, that in terms of ad dollars, you are doing several points worse than they are. Intuitively why do you think that is?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, I think the initial response would be that they have networks and the networks – the network business had fared better in this environment certainly than the local television business. So that would be – that would certainly be the answer. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. Thanks for your patience.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bishop Cheen from Wells Fargo. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: Hi, thanks for taking the question. Let me pick up on something that John said and go to your balance sheet. You're right up there on your covenant bank leverage at roughly 6.3 times against the 6.75 times covenant. When does that covenant step down?

Chris Young

Management

The covenant steps down, Bishop, in the first quarter of next year to 6.5 times. It remains at 6.75 through the year end. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: So 6.5 times at March 31, 2010?

Chris Young

Management

That’s right, and it stays in place through the second quarter and then it steps down again in the third quarter of 2010 to 6.25. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: Okay. All right. But Walter, Philip, you guys have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. You know that you can play clock all you can but the comfort level is when you get air and cushion between your covenant and your leverage. So given that the greet chutes may or may not be as green as we would like them and directionally your negative growth is half of what it was in Q1. Are you in discussions, formal or otherwise, with your secured debt holders already? Do you plan to? How do you plan to get some cushion back here?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Bishop, we are not in discussions with our bank group, we are in constant communication with them. But as of right now we’ve not engaged in any discussions on that front. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: Okay. And you correct me if I'm wrong. This is the tightest I have ever seen your leverage against a covenant with piece in it that of facility covenant. You're not alone. Everybody else in the free world seems to be in the same condition. So that's why I'm so focused on this. It would seem you would want to not just let the clock take care of it.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, that’s something Bishop, that we look at every day. We talk about this every day. We are looking at our numbers every day. We are seeing what our forecasted EBITDA is for the quarter versus what we need to do to be under the covenant. We are doing everything we can to avoid any issues with the covenant. Right now we know – we knew that we are going to see some tightness in the second, third, and fourth quarters of ’09. The economy certainly has dictated that. But given where we are today, and given what we are seeing in this quarter, third quarter, we think that we got enough room but if that were to change certainly we would communicate with our lenders. We have a very strong relationship with them. They have confidence in us. We have always been very transparent in terms of our business and our prospects. So we would be the first one to call them up and say let's sit down but we don't believe that that is necessary at this time. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: That does sound reasonable. Okay, last question in this (inaudible) position. The $20 million cost savings program that you put into effect, where are we on that in terms of how much have you already captured, how much more is left yet to go?

Chris Young

Management

Well, we did this past quarter did about 5.8 million in cost cuts that were kind of play out into the P&L. The variable cuts, if you want to break down the 7.3 million in the expense cost reductions, you would have about 2.1 million of that would be variable, the fixed cuts were about 5.8 million of that 7.3 million, and then offsetting that are some contractual ratings agencies and some incremental interactive expense to the tune of 600 grand that offset that and that’s what gets you to your 7.3 million. But as far as the fixed costs were concerned about 5.8 of that 20 in Q1 is about 2.5 million. So in Qs three and four, you've got roughly little under 6 million to go for the balance – 6 million per quarter the balance of the 20 million. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: Right. Okay, so let me just summarize because in numbers. 5.8 captured in Q2, 2.3 captured in Q1.

Chris Young

Management

About 2.5 million. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: About 2.5 million captured in Q1. So we are sitting there – I'm just rounding. About 8.3 million here or a little less than half of the overall 20, but I may not be counting some of the other variable costs that you have already been captured as well?

Chris Young

Management

Right. Keep in mind that the variability factor. I talked about variable expense being down about 2.1. In some of that variability it is not just commission expense but it is also bonuses that are linked to hitting goals that aren't going to be hit. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo:

Chris Young

Management

We think so. It all helps. Bishop Cheen – Wells Fargo: Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Our next question comes from Alec Serenely [ph] from SM Investors. Alec Serenely – SM Investors: Yes, hi. Thank you so much for taking my question. Going back through the retransmission. I saw in mid-June a press release from Univision where they were saying that they believe that their retransmission revenues might double up within next three to five years. Univision acts like your agent. So I was wondering if your contracts, your stepouts as well have that – that kind of a game for the next three to five years.

Chris Young

Management

Alex, this is Chris. There is an increase we have stated that before. But, I can’t give you any guidance with respect to the level of increase over time. There is a ramp up. Alec Serenely – SM Investors: I had to try. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) And we have a follow up from John Kornreich from Sandler Capital. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Are you had in any early stage talks to divest any TV stations.

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

No, we are not, John. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: And radio?

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

No. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: And I think I would assume likewise you are no longer thinking about buying anything from Univision.

Philip Wilkinson

Analyst

No, no. We do talk to Univision regularly. I mean if there were a swap out there that made some sense between us and any other broadcaster we would look at it but it would have to be something that was accretive and that was certainly worth the trouble of going through that process.

Walter Ulloa

Management

John, keep in mind as per our amended credit facility we are not allowed to do acquisitions once we have certainly leverage limits. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: But you were allowed to buy back stock?

Chris Young

Management

We had a carve out in the amendment for a chunk of Univision stock but we are not allowed to buy back stock. John Kornreich – Sandler Capital: Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the question-and-answer session for today. We will now turn the floor back over to our presenters for any closing remarks.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you, Vijay, and thank you everyone for participating on our second quarter investor conference call. We look forward to speaking to all of you in November when we will announce our third quarter results.

Operator

Operator

We’d like to thank you for participating in the Entravision Communications Corporation conference call. This concludes today’s event.