IAC/Interactive Down On Disappointing Q4

IAC/Interactive (IACI) shares are lower Wednesday morning following a disappointing fourth quarter earnings report.

For the quarter, the company had revenue of $1.86 billion and adjusted EPS of 46 cents; the company beat the Street’s top line estimate of $1.83 billion, but it missed the bottom line estimate of 55 cents. On a GAAP basis, the company lost $370 million, or $1.31 a share.

In a statement CEO Barry Diller says there was good news and bad new in the quarter, “the mix of which is another reason why our previously announced plans to reorganize IAC into five independent public companies makes more and more sense.”

Diller notes that the LendingTree business “continues to be negatively affected by the mortgage crisis,” the catalog retailing business had “a difficult quarter,” and the EPI discount products unit “continues to underperform”

On the other hand, he says HSN continues to turn around, Ticketmaster had record ticket volume; Interval had increased transactions and membership and Match.com had higher revenue per subscriber.

IACI provided some details on the performance of each of the five companies that would exist after the break-up proposal:

• New IAC: Revenue up 21% year-over-year in Q4; OIBDA -19%
• HSN: Revenue up 3%, OIBDA -7%
• Ticketmaster: Revenue up 27%; OIBDA up 8%.
• Lending Tree: Revenue down 55%; OIBDA -28.3 million.
• Interval: Revenue up 35%; OIBDA up 12%.

In a note Wednesday morning, Lehman’s Doug Anmuth notes that performance was “clearly disappointing in terms of overall profitability,” with earnings before income taxes and amortization of $210 million 18% below his estimate of $257 million. But he thinks the sell-off today is overdone.

IACI Wednesday morning is down $1.10, or 4.5%, at $23.45.