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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Scholastic Q4 2012 results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Jeff [ph] Matthews, VP of Corporate Strategy, Business Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
JM
Jeffrey Mathews
Analyst
Thanks, Allie, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that the slides for this presentation are available for simultaneous viewing by going to our website, scholastic.com, clicking on Investor Relations and following the links on that page. I’d also like to note that this presentation contains certain forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including the conditions of the children’s book and educational materials markets and acceptance of the company's products in those markets, and other risks and factors identified from time to time in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. Our comments today also include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Regulation G is provided in the company's earnings release, which is posted on the company's Investor Relations website also at scholastic.com. Now I'd like to introduce Dick Robinson, the Chairman, CEO and President of Scholastic, to begin our presentation.
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Thanks, Jeff. Good morning and thank you for joining our Fiscal 2012 Year End Analyst and Investor Conference Call. For this morning's prepared comments, I'm joined by Maureen O'Connell, CFO and CAO. Other members of the executive team will also be available to answer questions at the end of this call. With solid results across the company, fiscal 2012 was a good year made great by The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins' wonderful trilogy emerges yet another Scholastic published global phenomenon, regularly taking the top 3 spots on print and e-book bestseller lists across the English-speaking world and helping drive record earnings for the company. On top of our success for The Hunger Games, good execution delivered strong operating performance across the company. At the same time, we accelerated major digital initiatives in Children's Books, Educational Technology and International. Continued financial discipline produced significant free cash flow and we finished the year with our strongest balance sheet in more than a decade. These great results provide a strong foundation for the future. Although we will not repeat our record earnings from fiscal 2012, our goal for fiscal 2013 is to sustain last year's momentum while generating strong free cash flow. We have also taken major steps forward in the fast-paced digital transition of our businesses. We expect our substantial investments in e-commerce, e-books and new digital programs and education will generate strong profit growth, largely in fiscal 2014, though earnings in the year ahead will be lower than fiscal 2012's record level. Now I'd like to discuss our results and our plan in more detail. In Children's Books, we had a tremendous year in fiscal 2012. Continuing a record of high quality, best-selling Publishing and Trade, and strong results in fairs. At the same time, we successfully introduced Storia, our ereading…
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Well, thank you, Maureen. Now I will moderate a question-and-answer period. In addition to Maureen and Jeff [ph], I'm joined this morning by Ellie Berger, President of Trade Publishing; Margery Mayer, President of Scholastic Education; Judy Newman, President of Scholastic Book Clubs and e-commerce, as well as other members of our executive team who are here to answer any questions that you might have. So with that, let's open the call for questions.
OP
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Drew Crum of Stifel, Nicolaus.
Andrew E. Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: So I want to start with Hunger Games first. Dick, is there any way you can frame up what the revenue contributions were, the profit contributions were, in fiscal 2012 or in the fourth quarter? And Maureen, maybe you can talk about what your expectations for Trade would be in fiscal '13 ex Hunger Games?
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Well, Drew, as you know, we're not breaking out individual titles, either on revenue or profit side. So we are saying that we'll return to pre-movie levels. Meantime, Maureen can answer your other question on Trade. Maureen E. O’Connell: Yes. I mean, we peaked sales of Hunger Games in the April and May period, and as we said, we saw an easing off of those sales in May and June. And so we believe that those sales trends now will be similar to before the movie was launched. As far as your growth rate on Trade, it will be down double digits because of the decline in The Hunger Games sales. The core business, however, will have a single digit growth in the base. Andrew E. Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay, that's what I was looking for, because I think you made a comment about International. Your expectation was that International in fiscal '13, excluding Hunger Games, would be up versus fiscal '11, I was kind of looking for the same type of... Maureen E. O’Connell: And that would be the same trait on the base. Andrew E. Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay, fair enough. And then on digital, I think you mentioned incremental investments in fiscal '13, can you quantify what that might look like? And then returning to the fiscal fourth quarter of '12, what was the incremental investment you incurred around digital in that period? Maureen E. O’Connell: Okay, well, our digital investments, as you know, are core to our business now so they're embedded in a lot of our costs. So it was very hard to just break out separately because if you do a marketing promotion that has both a club promotion and Storia promotion,…
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Yes. As you know, we plan to have Storia available in many places as we possibly can. I might ask Deborah Forte, who's here with us, to talk a little bit about the applications for each of the various distribution devices, including Kindle.
DF
Deborah A. Forte
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Good morning. As Dick said, our strategy for Storia is to make it ubiquitously available and platform agnostic. So we're going out, of course, we've been on the PC and the iPad, and we expect to be on the Kindle this fall and on Android tablets and then roll out with phones. So we'll continue to do that like other sellers, just the way Amazon is on the iOS. And that's our strategy right now. So we're going to continue with that strategy and hope that we can reach as many of our customers as possible regardless of the device and platform.
Andrew E. Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay, good. That's helpful. And shifting to ed publishing, the guidance for technology, flattish for fiscal '13. Is it just the tough comparisons you're cycling against or is there anything else macro related that you're contemplating on the guidance there?
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Margery, you want to talk about that, please?
MM
Margery W. Mayer
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Yes, we had such a strong year with the launch of Next Gen and, I mean, we really had a phenomenal year. And as Dick's comments ahead of the questioning, said, we feel like we really are continuing in this evolution of our business where we're getting our sales force even stronger than they've been in the past. We've been hiring some really outstanding people. We've been getting a lot more consistent about how we sell, using data to sell. So we feel like we're doing fantastically. We have 3 great products coming out next year. We just had really high numbers in 2012 and we're continuing to do extremely well in the business.
Andrew E. Crum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: Okay. Dick, last question for me, can you talk about how you're thinking about uses of cash in fiscal '13? You generated healthy cash flow in fiscal '12, you mentioned the balance sheet's strongest it's been in the last decade or so and you're expecting strong cash flow in '13. How are you thinking about uses of cash going forward?
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Well first, we are, of course, investing considerable amount in digital side, as Maureen suggested. That, of course, is baked into our operating profit numbers. So we're accommodating that investment within the context of improving our free cash flow. As we have in the past 5 years, Drew, as you know, we've had a dividend; we've raised the dividend once. We have had several stock buybacks since 2007. We have an ongoing program of reacquiring shares. As Maureen noted, we have 31 million currently authorized by the board for that program. The board always looks at the question of the use of cash and how we can return more cash to shareholders. So that's our theme. As long as we’re able to manage the investment of our digital transition, which is so far we're doing very, very nicely. So I assume the board will continue to review this. We're obviously all very pleased about the cash generation from the current year. And we will undoubtedly be discussing this at all of our board meetings in the future, just to determine as to whether we’re on the best way that we can return cash to shareholders after investing in the business, which is growing so nicely right now, especially in the educational technology and digital side.
RR
Richard Robinson
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Well, thank you, all, for attending our fiscal 2012 year end call. We're very excited about the great achievement of the company during this year. We're thrilled to be the publisher of The Hunger Games trilogy which truly transformed publishing in the past year. We're making so many strong investments and transitioning our business to digital, and we're building our educational technology business while maintaining our leadership position in Children's Book Publishing and supplementary publishing for education, so we’re -- and our International business is just booming. So we're very excited. We thank you for your attention and we'll return to talk to you in September. Thanks so much.
OP
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. You may all disconnect and have a wonderful day.