Playboy Enterprises Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-11-25 07:13:25.0

Tags: Playboy Enterprises Inc., Call Transcript, U.K., Earnings, Question, RBC Capital Markets, Video On Demand (VoD), Tv & Home Theater, Advertising & Promotion, Currency & Foreign Exchange, TVs, Sales Force Management, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Marketing, Finance, Sales, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from David Bank – RBC Capital Markets.

David Bank – RBC Capital Markets

A couple of questions, I guess the first one, thanks for giving us the color on the expense reduction sort of split between the headcount and infrastructure. Can you give us a sense of the $12 million how much actually occurred in the third quarter and how much we're expecting to see in the fourth quarter and a kind of a general split, some sort of proportion between the divisions you highlighted, corporate, publishing and entertainment?

The second question I think is kind of a Bob-focused question which is, can you give us some color on where you think you can target margins in entertainment now that it looks like domestic TV is stabilizing a little bit, and also the subscription business in the UK. What do you think is happening there and can you give us a little more comfort that what sort of happened on the VOD market domestically isn't about to happen in the UK in terms of maybe some sort of a trend.

Then the last question for Alex is there any material effects, impact in licensing? Have you historically been benefiting and is there any impact there on the business as you look forward?

Linda G. Havard

David, this is Linda. Why don't I start with your first and maybe go to your last question too, and if Alex wants to add anything he can do that. Virtually none of the cost savings measures that we've announced have any impact in the third quarter other than the restructuring charge. Related to people, you'll really see that going forward in 2009. There will be some impact in the fourth quarter. I can't really quantify that at this point.

David Bank – RBC Capital Markets

So if you look at the expense base today it really should be $12 million lower in 2009?

Linda G. Havard

If you hold all revenues constant that's correct. There are two areas that we decided not to pursue this year that we have in the past so those will on a quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year basis look better; our incentive compensation and profit sharing. But in the third quarter there's really nothing there.

In terms of foreign exchange impact, really the largest impact that we see there has been and will probably continue to be in the UK as that business grows larger and that's in Bob's areas on the television side. To some degree we have seen that in Alex's area but it's much smaller. We tend to get paid in dollars and so we have little impact there. Bob, do you want to speak to the margin question?

 

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