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Earnings Calls: 
The McGraw-Hill Companies First Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 2:07 AM EDT May 08 2008


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Revenue declined 6% to $1.22 billion from $1.3 billion, on a steep drop in structured finance revenue in Standard & Poor''''s Credit Market Services and lower school education sales. The credit crisis has led to more than $200 billion in write-downs over the last year. In the U.S., total new issue dollar volume declined 56%, with mortgage-backed securities off 94% and collateralized debt obligations falling 91%. McGraw-Hill forecast full-year earnings per share in the $2.65 to $2.75 range.


Investors Question and Answers

 
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Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:March  Q2:June  Q3:September  Q4:December
 
Catriona Fallon (Citigroup): On the education business, it seems that your competitor Pierson is looking for a lower growth rate in the elementary high school area. What gives you more confidence that this growth is higher than the low single digits for that category?

Terry McGraw: There are two areas here. In the el-high area you have got both the adoption market and you have got the open territory market. You also have major states in play with California, Texas and Florida you have got significant opportunities there. You also have a significant increase in state adoption monies, 10-15%, we are looking at $900-$950 million there. We fully expect to take share here. In the open territories, we have been conservative in saying that after the last two years, we are saying 1-2% because one we do not know and secondly it is almost untenable that you will not see growth in these markets. Some of these states are already behind and given the fact that education is a priority in all of these states and the funding level seems to be healthy, we would expect to see open territory growth here as well. From our standpoint, the 6-8% growth of the segment reflects a good situation for the el-high market but also for the higher-ed market as well.

Catriona Fallon (Citigroup): The guidance is assuming essentially the market that we were experiencing at the end of March and since then we have seen CMBS spreads come in, we have seen agency spreads and corporate spreads also come in and you have made some comments that corporate activity is already up in April. Do you think that from what you have seen in the month of April that you are more likely to come in above that guidance even if structured finance is down, some of the other categories are already seeing strength?

Terry McGraw: We are still in a soft period and it is uncertain. What we tried to do, we are giving some guidance but as to put some boundaries here. If the first quarter activity levels like the fourth quarter levels continue, then the forecast of down 7-9% of financial services and 500 basis points or so in margin would be more appropriate. I do not think that that is going to happen but we need to see some of that activity level. We are starting to get encouraged by some of the things that we are seeing. I would say overall that even though the corporate and government area is showing some good upside in terms of treasurers going into investment grade long term quality on that that is there. I think the structured finance market is going to a gradual recovery on that part. We are seeing some upside and we will keep giving the best guidance we have got as we go. I do think the second half is going to be a much different situation than the first half of this year.

Michael Meltz (Bear Stearns): What was the contribution from acquisitions on the top line in the quarter at financial services?

Robert Bahash: It was relatively small, about seven-tenths of a percent. More importantly the impact on currency benefitted the financial services segment by about 1.4% as well.

Michael Meltz (Bear Stearns): Could you expand on the cost side of the business?

Robert Bahash: The quarter benefitted significantly from lower incentive compensation. There are two drivers there, first is the short term incentive compensation that is based on the current year performance and there is another element relating to our three year long term incentive which based on the forecast that we are going with, we adjusted those as well. There are two significant adjustments make up that $40 million affecting the financial services segment in the quarter. Now last year, 2007, we started to make adjustments to the incentive compensation accruals in the third quarter and in the fourth quarter last year. You may recall first and second quarters are strong; we had built our incentive accruals based on an expectation that the year was going to continue going that way. It actually started to decline. We pulled back incentive accruals a bit in the third quarter as well as in the fourth quarter. When you look at the lower incentive, just using that as a basis, the run rate will be at a lower rate going forward. In addition, there are some other significant parts of the business. When we look at Capital IQ, the data and information side, equity research, we look at our acquisition of Crisil and the growth rates we are seeing in Crisil as well as the acquisitions we made this year, we are making investments in those businesses, we are adding people to those businesses to drive that top line double digit revenue growth that we are forecasting. We are looking at a blended rate in terms of the overall impact on expense. We are focused strongly on being sure that we have right sized the credit market services business based on the environment that we are in as well as making certain that we have the appropriate talent in house to do the appropriate levels of surveillance that is necessary to meet market needs.

Terry McGraw: I would only add to that, how important the global side of this is. Both in terms of the Asian markets as well as parts of the European, those are important. We are excited about the operations out of Dubai and the work we are doing there. These will increasingly be important areas as both China, India, the Middle East and also the African markets. Right now in South Africa but also in terms of some of the urbanization and infrastructure development there as well.

Michael Meltz (Bear Stearns): Can you give some type of bridge to get from your prior free cash flow guidance to the new $600 million number?

Robert Bahash: It is our projection of the impact of the $2.65 to $2.75. What that does to our lower overall net income. There are a couple of items that influence our cash. As an example with regard to our data center, we had accrued certain construction costs at the end of the year 2007 but we have made payments of about $30 million associated with that this year. Also our profit sharing contribution, we shifted the payment into January of 2008 for 2007. We had not done that in previous years, we had the opportunity to do that, so we did do that. Also we have basically payments for the incentive compensation for 2007, those payments need to be made by March of 2008 and we do not have the corresponding accruals built for this particular year. That gives you a general idea but that generally walks down from the $900 to the $600 million.
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