Business News

Yellow Pages Income Fund Reports Q2 2009 Financial Performance

Friday 07. August 2009 - - Directory Adjusted Revenues increase by 4.3%; - Online organic growth in excess of 23%; - Distributable cash per unit of $0.35 compared with $0.36 last year

Yellow Pages Income Fund (TSX:YLO.UN) reported second quarter 2009 results today, demonstrating solid operational performance under difficult economic conditions. The company’s Directories segment continued to display ongoing resilience through these challenging times.

For the quarter ending June 30, 2009, consolidated net earnings were $116.8 million compared with $135.7 million for the same period in 2008. Income from operations was $169.5 million, including restructuring and special charges of $20.6 million, compared to $185.1 million for the same quarter in the prior year. Cash flow from operating activities in the second quarter of 2009 was $185.5 million compared to $181.8 million in 2008.

Consolidated Adjusted Revenues(1) decreased by 2% compared to the second quarter of 2008 to $421.2 million. Revenues reached $417.5 million. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA(1) was $226.1 million compared with $235.4 million for the same quarter in the previous year. EBITDA (income from operations before depreciation and amortization, and restructuring and special charges) was $224.1 million.

Online revenues for Directories and Vertical Media combined were $75.2 million for the quarter compared to $61.4 million in the second quarter of 2008 or approximately $300 million on an annualized basis. This represents organic growth of 23% in the quarter.

Distributable cash was $181.7 million in the quarter compared to $190.9 million for the same period in the previous year. Distributable cash per unit for the quarter was $0.35 versus $0.36 in the second quarter of 2008.

“While we continue to manage our business with prudence, we are pushing ahead our efforts in market coverage and in the introduction of new products,” said Marc P. Tellier, President and Chief Executive Officer of Yellow Pages Group. “For YPG’s management team, these steps are critical to building a strong business and ensuring our long-term success despite the ongoing pressures we are experiencing in the marketplace.”

Directories

In the face of challenging economic conditions, the priority in Directories continues to be the introduction of new products. For the second quarter, Adjusted Revenues in Directories increased by 4.3% to reach $354.7 million, and grew by 1% organically. Adjusted EBITDA grew 1% to $204.8 million, including non-recurring items of $4.3 million. Excluding the non-recurring items, EBITDA grew by 3%. The Adjusted EBITDA margin in the second quarter was 58.9% (before non-recurring items) compared with 59.7% in the second quarter of 2008.

Throughout the course of the second quarter, YPG identified additional opportunities for further cost savings and incremental efficiencies in the directories platform. The company expects that consolidation initiatives will be largely complete by the end of 2009.

As part of its ongoing commitment to the environment, the Company introduced the Yellow PagesTM ecoGuide during the quarter. Developed in collaboration with environmental and municipal organizations, the ecoGuide is located in the front of all new Yellow PagesTM directories and includes local environmental services, a household items disposal guide, a list of environmental certifications as well as actions to help Canadians reduce their ecological footprint.

On the online front, the Company launched the Yellow Pages Answers ServiceTM, enabling consumers to obtain local business recommendations online from an extended user network. This new service is available at http://answers.yellowpages.ca and allows users to ask questions and get recommendations in real-time.

Vertical Media

The current economic downturn is having its greatest impact on Trader, which experienced its most difficult quarter to date. Trader second quarter revenues were $66.5 million representing a decline of 26.6% compared with the second quarter of 2008. The decline narrows to 22.4% when taking into account the sale of U.S. operations and other restructuring initiatives completed in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Trader’s second quarter EBITDA was $21.3 million compared to $32.4 million in the second quarter of the previous year. Trader’s EBITDA margin was 32.1% in the second quarter of 2009, compared to 35.8% in the second quarter of 2008.

Trader has dedicated significant time and resources to cost containment and the completion of restructuring initiatives. Recent efforts have shifted to the deployment of Dealer Smart Solutions, an integrated, cost-effective solution for automotive dealers, and the positioning of the company for an economic recovery.

Recent Developments

Since mid-June, 2009, the Company completed a successful financing program through the issuance of Medium Term Notes under its $1 billion Universal Base Shelf Prospectus filed on June 20, 2008. Gross proceeds totalling $515 million were raised during that period.

“The principal objective of these financing efforts was to term-out in the public bond market a credit facility established to repay the $450M Medium Term Notes Series 1 which matured in April of this year,” stated Christian M. Paupe, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The Company has fully repaid this special-purpose credit facility.

In addition, the Company completed a 5-year term loan of $100 million with an institutional investor on July 24, 2009. “These financing efforts were intended to diversify our sources of funding and reinforce our capital structure,” added Mr. Paupe.

Outlook

Each year, we establish targets to advance our goals and drive our results through execution of initiatives to maximize revenue growth and cash flow generation in both of our operating platforms. These targets are reviewed periodically.

We continue to experience very challenging economic and market conditions. In developing an updated operating framework for the balance of this year and going into 2010, our planning assumption is that there will be no sustained economic recovery before late 2009 or early 2010.

In our Directories segment, we continue to benefit from high visibility associated with the recurring, predictable and resilient nature of our revenue sources through a diversified customer base. The principal growth drivers for 2010 consist of maintaining our focus on customer acquisition, introducing more integrated bundles for the directory category and continuing to innovate from an online perspective. We also continue to develop and are executing business process improvement initiatives which should result in continuing strong EBITDA conversion.

For fiscal 2010, in our Directories segment, guidance for Adjusted Revenues is $1,385 to $1,415 million representing organic growth of -1% to 1%. Our guidance for Adjusted EBITDA is $830 to $840 million.

In the Vertical Media segment, we are now in the process of diversifying our revenue sources through the introduction of integrated solutions for our customers. The introduction of Dealer Smart Solutions has extended Trader’s historical focus on media placement to more integrated service and media solutions. Dealer Smart Solutions is also expected to support the transition to a more stable and predictable revenue model while achieving improved advertiser retention.

Based on the above-mentioned factors, our guidance for Revenues in Vertical Media for fiscal year 2010 is $275 to $295 million and $80 to $90 million for EBITDA.

As we expand our multimedia offers, we expect online advertising to represent a growing share of our media mix with advertisers both in Directories and in Vertical Media. We expect annualized online revenues for Directories and Vertical Media combined to grow by approximately 20% in 2010. Our objective remains to grow the online proportion of Directories revenues from approximately 15% currently to a target of 20% for the fourth quarter of 2010. For the second quarter of 2009, more than 36% of Vertical Media revenues were already generated online.

We have also taken decisive measures to position YPG through these difficult times. We remain confident in our ability to achieve a level of Distributable cash per unit that is comparable to last year. For 2010, we expect growth of 1% to 3% in Distributable cash per unit.