Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) First up, we have a question from Youssef Squali at Jeffries.
Youssef Squali - Jefferies
Mark, can you go back and just basically restate what you said in terms of Q1 top line? I get the FTD part, but what did you say again about the healthy growth here. You said something to the effect although at a lower dollar level. Can you clarify that and the question, the second part, is to one part of the issue I guess is FTD now and the stock trading where it is. Is there any conversation within the board or at the board level about maybe considering a potential stock buyback versus the dividend, because clearly you’re not getting much credit for the dividend you’re doing and then using the excess cash to maybe retire more to that.
Mark Goldston
We expected to see healthy growth in revenues in the Classmates Media segment and we expected to experience continued decline in the communications revenue, but at a lower dollar level than we experienced in ’08. So communications is obviously doing better than it did in ’08 and Classmates Media continues to be a terrific business that’s performing at a terrific level. So what I wanted to be clear about is it’s a legacy URL that you know and investors know, which is the Classmates Media business, and communications business are two businesses that a) we are very familiar with. We’ve been running for many years and we think we have a very good handle on being able to project them even in tough economic times, because we’ve got this beautiful business model of subscription revenues, which allows us to project our business, which is why we like that business so much.
Clearly we do have some exposure to the advertising industry with MyPoints and some of our other ad sales, but that’s obviously a much smaller portion of our overall company.
So I just wanted to be clear in terms of the guidance that we were giving, because we’re not giving specific revenue guidance, but I wanted to provide you with some color so that you understand that while there are challenges in the retail community, strictly as relates to FTD, and there are challenges in the advertising market, the Classmates Media business is doing great and we expect it to continue to do so. The communications business had a quarter in the fourth quarter of ’08, it was the best quarter we had in many years, and we’re seeing the first quarter of 2009 to be a good quarter as well.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
