Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | F | Fair Disclosure Wire

Q4 2008 Churchill Downs Inc. Earnings Conference Call - Final.

Article Excerpt
OPERATOR: Welcome to the fourth quarter, 2008, Churchill Downs Inc. Earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) With us on the call, we have Mr. Kevin Flanery, Senior Vice President, Mr. Bob Evans, President and CEO, and Mr. Bill Mudd, CFO.

I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Kevin Flanery. Please proceed, sir.

KEVIN FLANERY, SVP, CHURCHILL DOWNS INC.: Thank you, Francine. Good morning, welcome to this Churchill Downs Incorporated conference call to review the company's results for the fourth quarter and full-year of 2008. The results were released yesterday afternoon in a news release that has been covered by the financial media, a copy of this release announcing results as well any other financial and statistical information about the period to be presented in this conference call including any information by regulation G is available at the section of the company's website titled Company News located at www.churchilldownsincorporated.com. Let me also note that a news release was issued advising of the accessibility of this conference call on a listen only basis via phone and over the internet

As we begin, let me express that some statements made during this call will be forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that include projections, expectations or beliefs about future events or results or otherwise are not statements of historical fact. The actual performance of the company may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Investors should refer to statements included in reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission for discussion of additional information concerning factors that could cause our actual results of operation to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made in this call. The information being provided today is as of this date only and Churchill Downs Incorporated expressly disclaims any obligation release publicly to update updates to reflect changes in expectations. Members of our executive team are here and will be available to answer questions after formal remarks. We'll begin now with our President and Chief Executive Officer, Bob Evans. Bob?

BOB EVANS, PRESIDENT, CEO, CHURCHILL DOWNS INC.: Thanks, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. Always the most fascinating part of these conference calls. Thanks for joining us today for this discussion of our financial performance for the fourth quarter and for the full year ending December 31, 2008. Before I get into all of that, I want to make a special mention of Vernon Niven. Vernon is one of our four Executive Vice Presidents of Churchill Downs Incorporated and President of our online business (inaudible) twinspires.com. Vernon is on the call with us this morning. He hates these things because he is in Mountain View, California and its 6 a.m. out there.C As we previously have announced, Vernon will be leaving us in June and returning to Florida for personal reasons, and I and everyone else that is in the room here today want to thank him for his many contributions to Churchill Downs Incorporated. We'll be spending a little time today talking about the strong performance of twinspires.com and Vernon has played the key role in creating a strong foundation for our online business, all of us here are going to wish him the very best.

In these quarterly calls I try to focus on the five most important things we think you should know about your company. This quarter I thought I'd organize my thoughts around the five key elements of our business, racing, gaming, online, entertainment and the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby. I thought I would try to give you some time-based perspective of what is going on. Before I start that, let me refer you again to the comments Kevin made at the beginning of our call regarding forward looking statements. . I'll start with racing. Last year, 2008, our thoroughbred racing handle was down an estimated 9%. That followed a relatively neutral year for the racing industry in 2007, although we were up about 8% in 2007. Much of our 2008 decline was due to the horseman's groups in different states restricting our ability to import and export (inaudible) for wagering purposes. The economic downturn in the financial industry crisis only exacerbated the problem. This year, 2009, most of the signal disputes have been resolved and we expect to bounce back from the impact of last year's signal cutoffs. Beyond that, it's really difficult to say where the overall industry handle is headed...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!