Astral Media, Inc. F1Q08 (Qtr End 11/30/07) Earnings Call Transcript

Astral Media, Inc. (ACM)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call

January 14, 2008 10:30am ET

Executives

Andre Bureau – Chairman

Ian Greenberg – President, CEO

Jacques Parisien – Group President, Astral Media Radio, Astral Media Outdoor

Alain Bergeron – V.P. Brand Management, Corporate Communications

Robert Fortier – V.P. Controller

Claude Gagnon – Senior V.P., CFO

Analysts

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Jason Jacobson – GMP Securities

Adam Shine – National Bank Financial

[Paul ? – Genuity Capital Markets]

Joel Sutherland – Merrill Lynch

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

David McFadden – Coremark Securities

[Eric Menkie – UBS]

[Maryann Godwin – Octagon Capital]

[Eric Bernofsky – Desjardins Securities]

Presentation

Operator

[French Translation Not Available] Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Astral Media’s fiscal 2008, first quarter fiscal results conference call. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Andre Bureau, Chairman of the Board of Astral Media, please go ahead sir.

Andre Bureau

Good morning everyone. I am Andre Bureau, Chairman of the Board of Astral Media and I am joined this morning by Ian Greenberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jacques Parisien, Group President, Astral Media Radio and Astral Media Outdoor, Alain Bergeron, Vice President of Brand Management and Corporate Communications, Robert Fortier, Vice President Controller. Claude Gagnon, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer is under the weather today and will not be joining us although as I know him, he will probably be listening somehow.

On behalf of all of us here in Montreal I would like to welcome you to this fiscal 2008 first quarter conference call. In a few moments, Ian will comment on the overall results after which we will proceed to the question and answer period. As usual we will take questions first from analysts them from media. [French Translation Not Available]

Ian Greenberg

Merci Andre, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. There is a lot of information on numbers in the press release and the MD&A. I will not repeat them but let me give you a quick overview of our first quarter of fiscal ’08.

Our unwavering commitment to continue this company, to grow this company either organically or by acquisition is well demonstrated in the results of this past quarter. Indeed we are delighted by the strength and the balance between the contributions of each business unit to the achievement of those strong results. I’m particularly pleased by our overall 20% increase in revenue which includes an 8% organic component and by our 24% EBITDA growth of which 10% is organic.

Now what does this tell us? First, that our strategy to combine accretive acquisitions with a continued commitment to organic growth is the appropriate one. Second, that our focus on execution is stronger than ever thanks to the commitment of more than 2,800 employees and one of the best management teams in the business. Last, that we have felt that we have the right mix of media assets and the footprint to deliver on our commitment [inaudible] the advertisers and consumers across Canada. Our leading positions in television and radio as well as our strategic positioning in outdoor advertising provides Astral with a true competitive advantage.

A few other points, firstly we recorded one month of contribution from the radio assets acquired from Standard on October 29, 2007. While it is only one month, it is still a good indication of the quality and the performing nature of these assets, with revenues up 4.4% to $18 million compared to the same month last year. And an EBITDA contribution of $6.7 million was recorded for Standard during this same one month. Secondly the Toronto Street Furniture program has been fully integrated into our outdoor advertising activities since September 1, 2007. While we still have a lot of new advertising phases to launch during the course of fiscal ’08, we have already enjoyed the benefits of a better critical mass of well located advertising [places] in the GTA.

So in summary we are absolutely delighted with our Q1 results and we feel we have the right strategy and the right assets to continue to achieve our objectives. Andre?

Andre Bureau

Thank you Ian, I would now like to open up the call to questions. As I indicated earlier, we will begin with questions from analysts followed by questions from the media.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[French Translation Not Available] Your first question comes from [Paul ? – Genuity Capital Markets]

[Paul ? – Genuity Capital Markets]

Good morning, just a couple of questions. You guys had a Pay TV Preview period in November, I was just wondering if you can comment on the uptake subsequent to that of course, you usually don’t see the impact until January or February? Is there any colour you can provide there, that would be great? Also, on the Radio, I was wondering if you can just comment, I know you guys don’t like to comment on pacings, but just give us a broad view of the outlook. We keep on hearing about soft retail and automotives because of the Canadian dollar and so on, but the TRAM Reports keep on looking pretty solid so I would just lead off with that.

Ian Greenberg

Alright, Paul as I’ve mentioned that the preview first of all this year was a month later than last year and so there comment about the results being better known in January and February for the preview I think are accurate. I think the one thing that I just want to make clear, Sopranos seems to take up a lot of note as to why the rate growth has dropped and the fact is in the first quarter we did not see a loss of any subscribers. And second of all, it’s an interesting note that probably many people are not aware of that when you talk about The Sopranos specifically, over 50% of HBO subscribers never watch The Sopranos, which speaks of the strength of the overall Pay category that people buy Pay for it’s overall offering, not just one specific program. We have the pleasure of having Jacques Parisien, who is President of our Radio group here today, so I’ll let him handle the second one except that you’re right, we do not give guidance either by segment or for the company and that remains our policy. Nevertheless, Jacques is free to give any colour he may choose.

Jacques Parisien

The only colour that I can give [inaudible] the market seems to be a bit softer in advertising overall not only Radio in Canada, but nothing more specific on that pertaining to Radio.

[Paul ? – Genuity Capital Markets]

Okay and maybe Jacques while you have the floor, maybe you can also comment on TQS, the impact it might be shutting down and the impact you would see on Quebec radio as a whole.

Jacques Parisien

Well again its speculation. I’m not sure yet if they will close down or someone will show up before that and if it does close down, there are so many options we can all look at as to the impact it will have on Quebec media; too speculative.

[Paul ? – Genuity Capital Markets]

Okay great, I’ll leave it there thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Jason Jacobson – GMP Securities

Jason Jacobson – GMP Securities

Good morning, just the first question on the Toronto Street Furniture contract, I’m just wondering if you can add a little bit more colour, tell us how it’s doing versus your expectations. And how your rates compared to the previous owners of those street furniture faces. I’m just wondering what advertiser response has been like if the rate did increase and how that’s looking into Q2. Then the second question is just on T.V. the operating expense growth was contained pretty well at 6%, I’m just wondering if that is a reasonable run rate for the rest of the year.

Ian Greenberg

Let me start with Toronto Street Furniture, first of all the question of whether it has met our expectations, the answer is yes. The rates, the fact is we’re going to be offering a different product as we go down the stream here because over the course of the fiscal year, probably mostly in the second half, we’ll be adding new structures to enhance what we took over from [CSB]. The fact of life is the quality and the positioning of outdoor furniture will be changing in Toronto which means that the prices will change because there will not be the kind of – whether its park benches or garbage cans on the streets, those kinds of structures will disappear over time. So if you look at that in the mix, overall we’ll be looking for increased rates because we’ll be offering, actually lesser amounts of structures on the streets and of a much higher quality. But as far as we can see so far, it’s met all our expectations and we expect that to continue but as you know it’s hard to predict past quarters in that particular business.

Can you just repeat the second part of your question?

Jason Jacobson – GMP Securities

Yeah, it was just on T.V. and the operating expenses, I’m just wondering if 6% growth overall is something we can expect for the rest of the year.

Ian Greenberg

Well we certainly hope so. As you know, I know there have been predictions that our cost would increase overall in T.V. We’ve been able to manage that while there have been some on the programming side, we’ve been able to cover that by more efficiencies in the operations, and that’s our goal. It’s hard to predict whether it will or won’t but that certainly is our goal.

Jason Jacobson – GMP Securities

Okay, thank you very much.

Jacques Parisien

May I include on that last question that this run rate includes the additional 50% of Music Plus, so if you’re looking on an organical basis, you’re looking more at 2% increase in costs.

Operator

Your next question comes from Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Good morning, thanks very much. I guess I’ll start out with a couple of regulatory questions if I may. I just wondered what you thought the potential positives and negatives could be for your business from the upcoming BDU Hearings and also I heard, somebody told me that the Appeal Hearing in December seemed to be kind of sympathetic to the CRTC’s position, I just wondered if you could give us any colour on those two issues?

Ian Greenberg

Scott, I’ll just answer the second one, are you referring to Part 2 fees when you talk about the sympathy of the courts?

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Yes.

Ian Greenberg

Okay, I’ll just handle that one, the CRTC fees. Number one, as you know we have chosen to still accrue CRTC Part 2 fees that will be our position until there is a final decision from the courts. So while they are sympathetic doesn’t really change our opinion that until it settles, we will continue our conservative fashion to accrue fees for Part 2 fees. The other question of course I’ll leave to Andre.

Andre Bureau

Well the April hearing on the review of Pay, Specialty, VDU, Over-The-Air will include a number of pretty fundamental issues. We expect to be involved in all of the four categories of issues there and we don’t expect anything that will be harmful to our operations. We have, there is a need for some reviews. There is a need for some simplification of rules. There are some rules that were meant to be very useful a few years ago that are not of the same use today and we will be prepared to abandon them. We don’t see that hearing as too dangerous for us. On the contrary, we believe that we will come out with streamlined type of approach, regulatory approach, and we will surely be working at that.

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Okay, thanks very much for that colour. The other question I had is just with the launch of Disney Playhouse and TELETOON Retro, first of all I just wondered if you could quantify any costs that won’t be recurring in the quarters to come associated with those launches and also just wondered, what’s the impact if any on the strategy for the Family Channel with the launch of Disney Playhouse.

Ian Greenberg

Okay we’ll take them one at a time Scott, first of all, the cost in sort of attributed to these channels are insignificant in this quarter and will be for at least the next quarter. So these are start-ups but we’ve arranged the cost side to be sort of matching revenue side so there will not be any material either costs or revenue synergies in the first half of the year. Insofar as Family there’s absolutely no affect on Family because first of all, neither Family or the Multiplex channel Playhouse Disney receive any advertising income. Second of all what happened on Family Channel is that frankly we had programming which we didn’t have space for and Disney has been producing a lot of programming for the two to seven age group which frankly weren’t – we didn’t have any space for. So after discussing it with Disney it seemed appropriate that we could have a channel dedicated to the younger age group; two to seven, and take all, most of that programming away from Family. Family is basically appealing to the tween demographic which is in the eight to 13, 14 category. So they are complimentary, completely different demographic and both of them will have terrific programming and Family Channel has just enjoyed tremendous success. We expect as we roll out Playhouse Disney to more affiliates that will also be a very popular channel to the two to seven category.

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Thanks Ian, that’s helpful. Just one last one if I may, you saw good margin improvement in both Radio and Outdoor divisions, just wondered if you could give us any indication of your expectations for the year for the margins in these two businesses.

Ian Greenberg

Well the Radio one is self-evident with the inclusion of Standard and so we would hope that would continue. And in the case of Outdoor, you know Outdoor is basically relatively small numbers compared to our other two divisions. It’s a volatile business where margins can change quite dramatically because of the volume from quarter to quarter. Needless to say we are pleased with the results of both. We will do everything is our power to make sure it continues, but it’s very hard to predict whether it will remain at that level for every quarter.

Scott Cuthbertson – TD Newcrest

Thanks very much.

Operator

Your next questions comes from [Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Hi guys, good morning, a couple of questions and I just wanted to make sure I heard the numbers right, Ian you said that the revenue at Standard for the October 29^th to November 30^th time period was up 4.4% and EBITDA was up 6.7%?

Ian Greenberg

No I didn’t say that. The revenues are up 4.4%. I said the EBITDA was $6.7 million for the month. I did not give a percentage compared to last year because frankly the way they did accounting is quite different than the way we do it. So in the case of EBITDA I gave you an absolute number without a corresponding number of the previous year.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay and $18.7 million was the revenue that came from Standard in the month, correct?

Ian Greenberg

I think I said $18 million.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay…

Ian Greenberg

Represented a 4.4% increase over the previous year.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay great. Will you provide us with sort of same property revenue growth if you had owned Standard on day one if you will, or on September 1^st if you will?

Ian Greenberg

Well no because frankly how they did business the previous year and even before we took over, how they do their accounting is different. We will try to give you for the balance of this year, on a quarter by quarter basis going forward the comparisons from year to year. But there is no way we’re going to get into the previous months where we did not own the company.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay, fair enough. And then I think so the second question from me is just in terms of Pay TV. If you look across your various VDU providers, can you give us a sense of where you see room for higher penetrations compared to others when we see that Rogers has much higher say digital cable, subscribed penetration rate than say Coegico and Videotron. Can you give us a sense of what kind of initiatives you’re working on with say some of the other cable companies like Coegico and Videotron to move up the TMN penetration rate?

Ian Greenberg

Well first of all if you look at Rogers while they have a high digital rate, the penetration of Pay still leaves a lot of room for growth in the future particularly with our SVOD offering, which as you know offers basically all of our programming on as SVOD basis. So we’re running under 50% penetration of Rogers so we see a lot of growth going forward from fronts. Number one, to get more than the 50% or 55% of people who are digital subscribers who don’t have Pay and the continued growth of the digital base in the Rogers systems as well as with Coegico and Videotron. So frankly, our challenge is to follow-up on the growth explosion that they’ve had in digital boxes and make sure we get the digital, penetration of Pay in those digital boxes to over 50%.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay fair enough and then last question, I know it’s obviously early days in terms of how Q2 is fairing up, are you seeing yet any kind of benefit from the Writer’s strike and sort of limited more original programming or new programming on conventional, any kind of flow of that into either your Pay TV viewing or into your Specialty viewing?

Ian Greenberg

I don’t think so Ben, the same way I gave you an answer that people don’t cut off Pay because Sopranos is not there, it would be much too early in the game to have any indication as to whether we’re going to have any benefit of that. Frankly my own view is I hope it’s over sooner rather than later. On the one hand I must tell you that on the francophone side none of our French services are affected by the strike because the unions in Quebec have already signed an agreement and for that matter, on the Animated side again it’s a separate union so that will have no affect on the Animated side.

[Ben Mobile – Thomas Weisel Partners]

Okay great, thanks a lot guys.

Operator

Your next question comes from Joel Sutherland – Merrill Lynch

Joel Sutherland – Merrill Lynch

Good morning, just a question on the debt, I wanted to know if the notional amount on your derivative contract is going to match the predetermined repayment schedule on the underlying debt so that you’re not going to have any overhang.

Ian Greenberg

Right.

Andre Bureau

Did you get the answer?

Joel Sutherland – Merrill Lynch

That is correct, sorry I didn’t hear. And then the second question was on the pensions and forgive me if you guys answered this in the last call or previous disclosures, but is there an order of magnitude that we can think of on pension costs, i.e. is it closer to $1 million or $10 million for Standard?

Ian Greenberg

Can we get back to you on that one?

Joel Sutherland – Merrill Lynch

Yeah. Okay thank you very much, that’s it for me.

Operator

Your next question comes from Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Good morning, a couple of follow-ups here, just on the television expense gross side 2% organic year over year, it just seems like versus our previous expectations heading into fiscal ‘8, you [inaudible] for that matter, are just outperforming on the expense growth, is there something going on here with respect to Q1 specifically or is this something that could be sustainable as we go through the year?

Ian Greenberg

Well there’s nothing going on. We hope it’s sustainable. The fact is when we have increases in one area of expense we try to curtail other expenses and that’s just good management. We will endeavor to continue that. If there is no other hidden agendas or hidden tricks in any of the numbers.

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Okay, I wasn’t implying that, just more one-time or something….

Ian Greenberg

No, there are no one-time events that took place Drew in the first quarter, it’s a manner of managing overheads in all areas not only programming and I think our teams have, as is evident, have done a great job.

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Okay, and just on the Outdoor side of the equation, just maybe a couple of comments on how the Outdoor operation excluding the Toronto contract performed in the quarter.

Ian Greenberg

Well obviously if you look at the results, we’re absolutely delighted because what this now does is it gives us a solid platform in which to attract advertisers particularly in the GTA, the greater Toronto area. So the combination of the billboards that we had previous to the Toronto Street Furniture contract and the addition of all the bus shelters and even looking forward of course to what we’ll be building out this year and for years to come, makes us a real player in the GTA market and so we feel confident about having this kind of platform for the first time in the history of Astral Media Outdoor in the Ontario market. So we’re bullish on it. Other than that there’s not really much more colour I can give you.

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Okay on the corporate cost side, is there any forecast in increase in corporate costs related to the Toronto Outdoor standard that is coming down the pipeline here?

Ian Greenberg

The answer to that is no.

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Okay and my last question on the BC television stations, just wondering what you’re planning to do with those stations.

Ian Greenberg

Well, it’s a good question but frankly they’re so insignificant in the overall mix of revenue, costs and synergies and profits that frankly it’s something that we’ll get to at some point. We’ve got much bigger issues to make sure that things, that the integration goes more smoothly. They make money, they’re not losing money, and so it is not one of our priorities for the future. But we will sort of address our self to the issue obviously [two] television affiliate relationships is not really part of the core business of Astral.

Drew McReynolds – RBC Capital Markets

Okay, thanks very much Ian.

Operator

Your next question comes from David McFadden – Coremark Securities

David McFadden – Coremark Securities

Hi, pretty much all of my questions have been answered just one on the corporate costs, excluding the stock-based comp, what do you think the number is going to be approximately in fiscal ’08?

Andre Bureau

While we are looking at it, can we give the answer to Bill…

[Unidentified Speaker]

Well maybe on the previous question on the pension play for the employees at Standard, we’re looking on an annual basis at 1.8% so for 2008 we’re going to have ten months of operations so we’re looking at 1.5% and for that specific question on the corporate costs, we’ll get back to you.

David McFadden – Coremark Securities

Okay thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from [Eric Menkie – UBS]

[Eric Menkie – UBS]

Good morning, most of my questions have been asked, just on the Outdoor, more specifically Outdoor Radio and the contract, have you got any feedback from any of your advertisers through your sales people on how people are responding to your new bundled offering? Have you seen an uptake with more people taking all three offerings?

Jacques Parisien

Well we’ve just as a matter of fact have started to offer that to the advertising community in Toronto and the action so far has been very encouraging. We’re positive about it. It’s quite unique to have the opportunity for an advertiser to cover the local market of the greater Toronto area with outdoor and with radio stations. But the radio operators as well as the outdoor operators are having their first attempt at it. It’s been two months now since we’ve taken over the radio stations and more jobs are to be done but we’re very positive about the first two months.

[Eric Menkie – UBS]

Thanks and just one quick follow-up, you may give us an idea of your economic assumptions when you’ve been looking at your budgets for 2008?

Ian Greenberg

They fall in line with what we’ve seen as in increase [inaudible] and GDP. Frankly we don’t sort of fall back on following exactly where the economy is. We set our targets for our self based on us getting larger shares in all the businesses we’re in. This is a constant goal that we have that we always will have and therefore no matter what happens in the marketplace, hopefully we’ll be agile enough to take advantage particularly as in Toronto and the Ontario market with our new platforms. Particularly because in Quebec we continue to enjoy excellent ratings and therefore we feel whether there’s a slippage of a half a point, we still should be able to reach our objectives.

[Eric Menkie – UBS]

Thanks very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Adam Shine – National Bank Financial

Adam Shine – National Bank Financial

Good morning, can you guys try and isolate the contribution in Outdoor from the Toronto contract in Q1?

Ian Greenberg

I thought we made it clear Adam that we consider the Toronto contract as part of organic growth of our Outdoor division and we have no plans frankly to disclose separate numbers for Toronto Street Furniture because many times we’re selling a package that includes partly the Toronto Street Furniture structures, partly our former outdoor signs and therefore it’s impossible to separate it from that point of view. To us it’s just an extension of our Outdoor business in Ontario and we will not be separating that out in the foreseeable future.

Adam Shine – National Bank Financial

Okay, fair enough and just maybe building on a question from Drew earlier, maybe for Jacques, in the quarter we saw non recurring integration costs associated with Standard in the corporate cost line of about $.4 million, any way to quantify at this early stage what those costs may be for coming quarters or too early to tell right now?

Jacques Parisien

It’s too early to tell right now but they certainly will not be significant.

Adam Shine – National Bank Financial

Okay thanks a lot.

Operator

Your next question comes from [Maryann Godwin – Octagon Capital]

[Maryann Godwin – Octagon Capital]

I was just curious if you keep track of or have any comment on the type of advertisers that are on television and radio, have you seen a shift between the national and the retail as a percentage of the numbers?

Jacques Parisien

Well in radio we have not seen a shift. In television, all our advertisers, nearly all our advertisers are national advertisers; we don’t carry any local advertisers on our [unaudible]

[Maryann Godwin – Octagon Capital]

None at all. Okay, good thank you.

Jacques Parisien

Well I shouldn’t say none at all, exceptionally.

[Maryann Godwin – Octagon Capital]

Okay thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from [Eric Bernofsky – Desjardins Securities]

[Eric Bernofsky – Desjardins Securities]

Good morning, can you just update us on some of your leverage targets going forward and how you might balance that with share buybacks throughout the year?

Ian Greenberg

Well the leverage I believe started off at a little over 2.6 because of the fact that we actually the transaction earlier than we had predicted originally with Standard. At the end of this year, each year if we don’t do other acquisitions, that debt will come down a half a point. So the 2.6, 2.7 will be 2.2. We have in place a share buyback agreement. It’s there to be used on one hand. On the other hand it’s a balancing act where it’s the best, most efficient use of our financial resources. So in any case, whether we do some buyback or don’t do a buyback, the leverage will reduce and reduce anywhere from obviously between a half a point and .3 or .4. So we have complete freedom to do both, to reduce the debt and to do a share buyback and of course should there by any small tuck-in acquisitions over the next two quarters we also want to have room to do that. So we feel very comfortable obviously where it is now and with the prediction of where the debt will be going.

[Eric Bernofsky – Desjardins Securities]

Okay great thanks and just one more for modeling purposes, can you just remind us what your average interest rate is on that new debt is, thanks.

Ian Greenberg

5.2.

[Eric Bernofsky – Desjardins Securities]

5.2? Great, thank you very much.

Media Question-and-Answer Session [French Translation Not Available]

Operator

It seems that there are no further questions at this time; I will ask Mr. Andre Bureau to give closing remarks.

Andre Bureau

Thank you. I would like to remind those needing more detailed financial information that the complete unaudited consolidated financial statement with the related notes and the MD&A are available on our website at www.astralmedia.com. They will remain on the site until January. 2009. If you have any further questions, please contact Alain Bergeron at 514-939-5008 following this call.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site arethe copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES INTHE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S AUDIO PRESENTATION ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S SEC FILINGS BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS.

If you have any additional questions about our online transcripts, please contact us at: [e-mail]. Thank you!