This summary is based on the first quarter fiscal 2008 earnings call conducted by Dun & Bradstreet Corp. (DNB: chart) on May 8, 2008.

Management:

- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Steve Alesio
- President and Chief Operating Officer: Sara Mathew
- Chief Financial Officer: Tasos Konidaris
- Leader of Treasury and Investor Relations: Richard Veldran

Key Investors Issues

- Revenue was $414.7 million, up 8% from $379 million in the prior year.
- Income growth was 16% up to $61.2 million or $1.07 a share.
- The firm paid out $17 million in dividends and the Board of Directors has now declared a 30 cents a share cost dividend for the second quarter.

First Quarter Highlights

Revenue was $414.7 million, up 8% from $379 million in the prior year similar period before the effect of foreign exchange (up 9% after the effect of foreign exchange).

- Total revenue results reflected Risk Management Solutions revenue of $274.3 million, up 7%, as Supply Management Solutions contributed 1 point of Risk Management revenue growth.
- Sales & Marketing Solutions revenue of $109.7 million, up 5%, and Internet Solutions (previously referred to as E-Business Solutions) revenue of $30.7 million, up 24%.

Income growth was 16% up to $61.2 million or $1.07 a share from $52.7 million or 87 cents a share in 2007 on strong operating income results, the accretive impact of the ongoing share repurchase program, partially offset by higher interest expense.

- The results reflect margin extension in both the US and international, demonstrating the ongoing ability to drive margin growth while improving the top-line.
- In the US, operating income was up 9% and the margin improved by 80 basis points to 36.9% due to revenue growth and re-engineering savings, partially offset by investments to drive future top-line growth such as DNBi, Purisma, and the internet business.
- In the international segment, operating income was up 25% and margins improved by 30 basis points to 14.1% driven by revenue growth, as well as favorable foreign exchange, which accounted for roughly half of the operating income growth.

Both increases were partially offset by investments in DUNSRight in Asia to fuel future top-line growth.

- The firm generated free cash flow of $107 million, a 5% improvement versus a strong performance in the prior year, which had benefited from the timing of a tax refund.
- The Dun leveraged the free cash flow to make ongoing investments in the business to support the long-term growth strategy while returning a significant amount of cash to shareholders through share repurchase and cash dividend.

The firm bought back 1.4 million shares for a total of $120 million, with $85 million due to opportunistic buying under the discretionary share repurchase program and the balance was used to mitigate dilution from our equity awards.

- In addition, the firm also paid out $17 million in dividends and the Board of Directors has now declared a 30 cents a share cost dividend for the second quarter.
- Capital expenditures incurred totaled $17.4 million or 4.2% of revenue, reflecting the highly capital efficient business model.

Segment Highlights:

- US business total revenue grew 6% to $321 million and operating income grew 9% over the prior year.
- US Risk Management, the largest segment grew 6% over prior year inline with expectation and includes 2 points of growth from supply management, which is now reporting as part of RMS.
- The primary driver of RMS growth was once again the subscription program, which is now 45% of the RMS business up from 37% a year ago.
- Within the subscription program DNBi now accounts for two-thirds of the total revenue as the firm creates a win-win solution for D&B and customers when it converts them to DNBi.

Since DNBi is a real time interactive product it can be customized to meet the unique needs of individual users.

- Customers really like the functionality that DNBi provides and as a result they have historically rewarded the firm with double-digit increases in their revenue commitment.
- The company therefore intents to continue to drive DNBi penetration over the rest of 2008.
- Converting the traditional product to DNBi has been underway for well over a year, with the firm having only begun migrating the value added products to DNBi.
- This is done through the addition of modules to perform risk mitigation activity such as portfolio analysis and automated credit decisioning.
- These new DNBi modules provide cross-sell opportunities for the sale force and allow it to bring DNBi solutions to small and mid-size customers in a simple easy to implement fashion.

S&MS accounts for 29% of the US revenue and grew 3% in the quarter, though this was below expectations.

- The traditional business which accounts for roughly 40% of the S&MS revenue generated a modest 1% decline inline with expectations.
- The focus is to migrate the customers from traditional S&MS products to value added solutions overtime.

In S&MS, the strategic area of focus is value added products or VAPs since that includes commercial data integration the second strategic stake.

- VAPs now account for 60% of revenue and grew just 6% in the quarter below expectations.
- The firm expects an improvement in the S&MS growth rate over the balance of 2008 driven by shopper execution on the optimizer and increased traction from Purisma.