Huron Consulting Group Inc. Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-02-24 15:01:45.0

Tags: William Blair & Co., Headcount, Call Transcript, William Blair Co., Health Care, Earnings, Huron Consulting Group Inc., Vertical Industries, Mergers & Acquisitions, Benefits, Healthcare, Corporate Law, Enterprise Software, Software, Investment, Finance, Human Resources, Business Operations, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And our first question will come from Tim McHugh - William Blair & Company.

Timothy McHugh – William Blair & Company

First I wanted to know if you gave a few comments about the first quarter just being up sequentially, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you’ve been seeing in the Financial Consulting as well as Legal Consulting and then I know early in the year it’s a big time of the year for the assessment piece of healthcare and how backlog is kind of building as through January and February?

Gary Holdren

Yes, Tim. So, let’s start with you, we’re right now if you look at our daily run rates for economic and financial consulting there is no improvement from Q4. Our Legal Consulting business is probably about the same. We are seeing a huge amount of assessments and huge improvement in our healthcare business even over Q4.

Tim McHugh – William Blair & Company

Okay. And then, did I hear correctly, you said Legal consulting would be 10% to 15% of revenue.

Gary Holdren

15 to 20.

Tim McHugh – William Blair & Company

15 to 20? Okay. And then, can you talk a little bit more, you kind of mentioned that Dan would be coming up with a plan to kind of write the ship within Financial consulting. Can you give any more detail in terms of what you are thinking there, are you taking out additional headcount at this point or is it more on the sales side that you think there is opportunity?

Gary Holdren

Yes and yes. We are taking out headcount, we taking out headcount. Huron is taking out at about $5 million of annualized pay roll costs in the first quarter with about $1 million of severance and we’ve got a plan to be in the market place everyday and Ben and Tim and Mike are working on a very strategic plan as to where we are going to take this practice.

Timothy McHugh - William Blair & Company

Okay, then lastly, in terms of uses of cash this year, as you think about the cash flow you will generate. Will it primarily be to pay down debt or will you be looking at additional acquisition opportunities?

Gary Holdren

First and foremost, we want to pay down debt. And if something comes along good it’s likely that, we probably would maybe do a stock deal if something came along. So, we want to pay our debt down, right now.

 

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