Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Kyle Evans – Stephens, Inc.
Kyle Evans – Stephens, Inc.
You’ve lowered the EPS guidance and that makes perfect sense, could you give us your thoughts on the top line? I’ve got some follow up questions as well.
Anand K. Nallathambi
It’s really difficult at this point to give top line numbers, Kyle, mainly because of where the market is. We tried to make a good estimate on where we think it will be and we feel like, given the circumstances, our performance will be very good and we’re focusing a lot on taking the costs out but the revenue line, because of our heavy reliance on mortgage, employment and other sectors that depend so much on the economic forces, it’s tough to give a revenue estimate.
Kyle Evans – Stephens, Inc.
Should we take the old revenue guidance and just throw it out then? We’re not anywhere close to halfway to the lower end of the previous range [inaudible].
John Lamson
Certainly I think it would be safe to assume that the prior revenue guidance, given the economic conditions, aren’t going to be achieved but we did not prepare to discuss specific revenue guidance.
Kyle Evans – Stephens, Inc.
Maybe a little bit near term outlook in the Litigation Support business since that’s become a primary contributor to operating income?
Anand K. Nallathambi
We have talked to our people there and they feel like the pipeline looks really good. Obviously it’s a weighted pipeline but they feel very confident that they don’t see any further deterioration or projects coming in. Again we talked a lot, Kyle, in the past in the calls about the Litigation business to us is more of a capacity utilization. We haven’t seen any problem of being the top price provider out there. So we feel pretty confident that we can be in the range. That’s an area that we feel even though it’s a lumpy business we feel a lot more confident than the credit and financial sectors of the business.
Kyle Evans – Stephens, Inc.
So if it was say a quarter of EBIT this quarter and I think actually it came in more like 23% before corporate, is that something that could be over 30% by year end as a percent of total EBIT pre-corporate expenses?
John Lamson
Certainly that business I think has the potential to be that. As we’ve seen from some prior quarters if you look at for instance I think it was the fourth quarter of 2007 when we had really an outstanding quarter in there. But certainly it’s got the potential for that but this just goes back to the issue of it being a little difficult to predict on any long term basis when a project is going to come into the door.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
