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

Q2 2009 Education Management Corporation Earnings Conference Call - Final.

Article Excerpt
OPERATOR: Welcome to the Education Management Corporation fiscal 2009 earning conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded today, the 12th of February, 2009.

I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Mr. Jim Sober, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead, sir.

JIM SOBER, VP OF FINANCE, EDUCATION MANAGEMENT CORPORATION: Yes, thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone and welcome to Education Management's second quarter fiscal 2009 conference call. With me this morning is Jock McKernan, chairman; Todd Nelson, Chief Executive Officer; Ed West, President and Chief Financial Officer.

As has been publicly announced, Education Management Corporation, the indirect parent of Education Management LLC, filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December of 2007 in conjunction with the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The registration statement has not yet become effective, and these securities may not be sold, nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This conference call shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. In accordance with SEC rules regarding permissible communications by issuers during the registration process, we will not make any comments regarding the proposed initial public offering or the registration statement. During today's call, we will begin with opening remarks followed by a question-and-answer session. Before turning the call over to Todd for his opening comments, I'd like to remind everyone that the cautionary statement included in last night's earnings release also pertains to the discussion on this call. Todd?

TOD NELSON, CEO, EDUCATION MANAGEMENT CORPORATION: Thanks, Jim. Again, welcome to our second-quarter call. And as evident from the strong results reported in the earnings release, our continued investment in our long-term growth strategy for new program rollouts, new location, and online education continues to produce positive results. We're pleased to report excellent enrollment growth for our recent January start, where we continue to see demand across all our education systems and our diverse portfolio of academic programs. We continue to experience good growth at the Bachelor's degree level as well as graduate programs which account for nearly two-thirds of our total enrollment. In addition we saw double-digit growth in nearly all of our major programmatic areas.

Total enrollment for the recent January start was approximately 114,000 students, versus 97,100 students last year, which is an increase of 17.3%. Excluding the seven locations that are less than a year old, same-school enrollment was 112,400 students, which is an increase of 15.7%. Students enrolled in fully online programs across our three online education systems grew over 50% to approximately 22,400 students or roughly 20% of our total student population. During the quarter, we began enrolling students at the Art Institute of Houston North, which is our second art institute in the Houston market. And recently announced a Brown Mackie college in Phoenix, Arizona, bringing the number of new locations open so far this fiscal year to four.

As I said earlier, another component of our long-term growth strategy is programmatic expansion across our schools. Where through the first six months of the fiscal year, we've rolled out over 130 additional program locations -- excuse me, 130 programs at additional locations, which is a 12% increase over the prior year. In addition we continue to develop new programs to meet the changing demand in the marketplace. With the new Bachelor's degree in design and technical graphics, at the Art Institute, an Associate's program if biomedical equipment technology at Brown Mackie, a Master's program, psycho pharmacology at Argosy University and a Master's degree program in leadership at South University online.

We're also pleased that even in the difficult economy we continue to experience strong demand for our graduates as evidenced by our graduate outcomes. Which are measured six months after graduation....

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