Chindata Group Holdings Limited (CD) Q1 2006 Earnings Call Transcript
Published at 2006-04-27 17:00:00
Good morning everyone and welcome to the Cendant Corporation's first quarter 2006 conference call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Sam Levenson, Senior Vice President of Corporate and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us. On the call with me today are our Chairman and CEO, Henry Silverman; our President and Chief Financial Officer, Ron Nelson, and our Group Vice President of Investor Relations, Hank Diamond. Before we discuss the results of the quarter, I would like to remind everyone of four things. First, the rebroadcast, reproduction and retransmission of this conference call and webcast without the express written consent of Cendant Corporation are strictly prohibited. Second, if you did not receive a copy of our press release, it's available on our website at www.Cendant.com or on the First Call system. Third, the Company will be making statements about its future results and other forward-looking statements during this call. Statements about future results made during the call constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on current expectations in the current economic environment. Forward-looking statements and projections are inherently subject to significant economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies, which are beyond control of management. The Company cautions that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and projections are specified in the Company's 2005 annual report on Form 10-K, included under headings such as Risk Factors, and in our earnings release issued last night and filed on Form 8-K. Finally, during the call the Company will be using certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules. Where required, we have provided a reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the tables in the press release and on our website. Before I turn the call over to our Chairman, let me briefly review the headlines of yesterday's press release. Revenue for the first quarter increased 7% to $4.2 billion. First quarter EPS from continuing operations was $0.13 and EPS from continuing operations, excluding separation costs, was $0.16 which was at the high end of our most recent estimate. We also reiterated the full year 2006 financial estimates that we had announced at our Investor Day on March 21. Now I would like to turn the call over to Cendant's Chairman and CEO, Henry Silverman.
Thank you, Sam. I am going to quickly update you on the status of our plan to separate Cendant into four pure plays, and the status of the strategic alternatives for TDS. Then, Ron will discuss our financial results and outlook. With respect to the timing of the separation, much has been accomplished and the spin-offs are proceeding according to our plan. As previously announced, we filed the Form 10 for the Realogy spin-off early this month, and we anticipate receiving comments from the SEC in the next few days. The Form 10 for Wyndham Worldwide is on track to be filed mid-May. So assuming a normal process at the SEC, our expectation remains that Realogy will be spun-off in June, and we remain optimistic that Wyndham Worldwide will be spun-off in July. We have completed the financing for Avis/Budget which was required to facilitate the spins, and we expect to complete the Realogy and Wyndham Worldwide financings in May and June respectively. With respect to TDS, we announced on Monday that in addition to moving forward with the spin-off, which remains on track for completion in early October, we are also exploring the alternative of a sale. This was precipitated by four factors. First, we have received unsolicited enquiries from a number of interested buyers. Second, unlike the other three companies, TDS could be sold without significant tax leakage due to the relatively high tax basis of that Company. Third, we and our advisors believe that selling TDS at an appropriate price and using the proceeds to reduce the liabilities and indebtedness allocated to Realogy and Wyndham, could potentially create greater shareholder value than the spin-off of TDS. Last, the lenders who've agreed to provide financing to a potential private equity buyer have indicated that this is an extremely favorable capital markets environment for this type of transaction. With respect to the potential sale, we have engaged Citigroup, JP Morgan and Evercorp as our advisors, and the first two have also indicated that they will provide financing to qualified buyers. We have sent offering memoranda to a number of interested parties. Again, if a sale cannot be completed under terms that we believe would enhance shareholder value, we are on track to complete the spin-off in October; and, with the recent hirings of Gordon Bethune as Chairman and Jeff Clarke as CEO and President, TDS is well-positioned to do well as either a public or private entity. Finally, this is likely my last Cendant conference call in our present iteration. We know some investors have been on these calls since the HFS IPO in 1992, and I want to personally thank you and all of our other shareholders for your support and your trust and confidence over the last 13 years. With that, I will now turn the call over to Ron.
Thanks, Henry. Given the depth of our review on Investor Day last month, my comments today will be relatively brief. I want to highlight some of the current trends in our real estate business, and then provide some greater clarity on the performances of Wyndham and TDS that may not be immediately apparent from a quick read of our press release. First, in terms of our EPS we came in at the high end of our projections due to better than expected results at Realogy. The primary reason why we had a $0.05 in our first quarter projection was uncertainty over how long it would take for real estate sellers and buyers expectations to reach equilibrium in the areas which had seen biggest drop off in volumes, starting in the late fourth quarter like California and Florida. Although these regions remain significantly challenged, they performed towards the high end of our expectations in the first quarter, and the balance of the country showed stability. Overall, price, while clearly moderating, was still up 9% at franchise and 6% at NRT, while transactions were down 10% at franchise and 6% at NRT, excluding the impact of a one-time benefit at franchise in the first quarter of 2005. So while our prior estimate was that EBITDA could be down in the 30% to 40% range in the first quarter, the actual result was a decline of 25% which contributed to our achieving the high end of our earnings projection. There are a few observations to be taken away from this. First is the state of the market. There is no question certain markets that were overheated are feeling the pressure of reduced transaction volume, but at the risk of disappointing the bubble theorists, size and price activity across the country simply do not reflect a widespread downturn in the housing market. Second, as we discussed at investor day, the first quarter is the seasonally weakest for the residential real estate brokerage industry. This is particularly magnified at NRT, which has the highest operating leverage, up or down, and typically operates at a loss in the first quarter. NRT's profits are highly seasonal, with 96% of its 2005 EBITDA earned in the second the third quarters. With size and price essentially canceling each other out, what drove the EBITDA decline is not so much the marketplace, but rather higher fixed costs and a seasonally slow period. As we discussed in our February call, we are addressing our fixed costs through office consolidation, head count reduction and other moves, and expect to generate a $50 million annual run rate benefit in the back half of the year. The takeaway here is we do not expect the first quarter's EBITDA comparisons to be in any way indicative of how the rest of the year will look. Third, the importance of our acquisition program is clearly shown in the results. The size in California and Florida off in the mid-20s in the aggregate, the impact of acquired size allowed NRT to improve its revenue performance in an otherwise softening market. Finally, our franchise results which geographically encompass a more national footprint, demonstrate the moderation in the market but also reflect a more stable national housing environment. So based on these trends, we continue to expect a soft landing for the real estate market in 2006, with price up in mid-single digits and volume down in the high single digits, which is consistent with the views of NAR and Fannie Mae. We expect that our real estate businesses should outperform these metrics by a couple of percent through franchise sales, NRT broker acquisitions and continuation of the price out performance we experienced in the first quarter. As the year progresses, and sellers and buyers continue to adjust to the moderating market, we would expect year-over-year pricing comparisons to continue to moderate, but year-over-year transaction comparisons to improve. So assuming current trends to continue, we would expect Realogy EBITDA to be down year-over-year in the second quarter and consistent with the projections we gave at Investor Day, to be about flat for the full year of 2006, excluding separation costs. Turning to our travel businesses, let me start with Timeshare Resorts, which continues to fire on all cylinders. Excluding the impact of the adoption of a new accounting rule, FAS 152, which impacts the timing of when timeshare companies recognize revenue and expenses, revenue was up 18% and EBITDA was up 38%. This outstanding performance was the result of management's decision to pursue a new Trend West in-house sales program. Also, continued improvement in local marketing efforts and other sales initiatives. The timeshare industry has gained considerable visibility and momentum over the past year, with many of our competitors now showcasing the business as an important part of their growth strategy. We are positioned somewhat differently than our competition with our points based timeshare product, which allows our customers to purchase our products in various increments and at variable price points, as opposed to the traditional fixed week timeshare, which offers limited flexibility through a one size fits all approach. Our points-based products enable us to target virtually all consumer segments through a established distribution channels, as well as continue to upsell past purchasers as their demand for our product increases over time. This continuing opportunity to upsell past customers is a very profitable endeavor. It requires a fraction of the marketing cost and is why we view our industry-leading customer base of more than 750,000 as a very important asset. With respect to the accounting change, you should note that the adoption of FAS 152 should continue to benefit our timeshare EBITDA in the second quarter, but will reduce EBITDA in the back half of the year. Let me spend the balance of my comments on hospitality and TDS. First, in hospitality the reported results at first blush may seem disappointing. However, the drivers for most of the businesses actually paint a different picture, a picture characterized by growth. In Lodging, the Wyndham acquisition contributed revenue of $31 million and EBTIDA of $2 million in its first full quarter of operation. Our legacy franchise business also grew its REVPAR, excluding Wyndham, by 10%, a very strong performance by any measure, and a reflection of the field-based and quality initiatives that management previously implemented. Trip Rewards, our loyalty program, grew its revenue by 55% year-over-year reflecting an increase in both member stays and members. This loyalty program typically operates on a breakeven basis, as such the incremental revenue was invested in the program. In RCA, our traditional exchange business experience year-over-year growth in subscribers, accompanied by an increase in subscription and transaction revenue. However, despite the top line growth at RCA and Lodging, the hospitality's overall EBITDA did decline. This was a result of several factors, including: Were it not for these items, hospitality services EBITDA would have been up for the quarter. Looking ahead, however, the first quarter decline in our European vacation rental revenue was mostly a timing issue and will turn around later in the year. And our Asian initiatives should similarly give rise to income on a longer-term basis as we expand our business into the fast-growing Asian markets. Our loyalty program is already a significant asset to our franchisees. Length of stay and average daily rates of Trip Rewards members are well above the overall average for our brands. Let me now address travel distribution. First and foremost, let me reiterate Henry's sentiments of how pleased we are to have hired Gordon Bethune as Chairman and Jeff Clarke as CEO and President. This is really a powerhouse duo with a perfect combination of experience in the airline travel industry, and in the technology industry. Whether TDS becomes a separate publicly traded or privately held company, it will be well-positioned to grow under their leadership. Second, the strategy of investing in online is starting to show its merits. In our domestic online business during the quarter, we grew our gross bookings by approximately 30%, up from approximately 20% in the fourth quarter of 2005; we grew our packaging gross bookings by 67%, including 94% at Orbitz alone; and finally, we grew our hotel merchant mix by 13 percentage points versus the prior year. We also made great strides in creating brand differentiation and in providing the value-added services that are key to building customer loyalty. We launched our first ever package focused advertising; we launched the Win with Orbitz campaign; we launched the Orbitz TLC sub brand, and we launched the Orbitz TLC flight delay alert program. All of these appear to have given us greater traction in the market place and were accomplished with only an approximate 4% increase in marketing and promotion spend. At e-bookers, we believe we have a clear picture of the bottom. We are also confident that we now have the right management team in place; and while meaningful improvements won't be seen until the new platform is up and operational, which is expected in the fourth quarter, we still have made significant positive strides. More specifically, at e-bookers, we have refocused its offline long haul business travel bag, repositioned its marketing and seen average transaction values rise over 30%. At ebookers, our hotel sales while admittedly off a low base, are up 50% from a year ago; and our search speed, while a long way from optimal, has been improved by some 10 seconds, which while may seem like a small number is a nonetheless noticeable improvement for our customers. Overall, our organic gross bookings are down internationally, but the majority of the decline is attributable to the natural decline in web-enabled offline bookings. Fewer people are searching online and booking offline as that industry matures. This is clearly the phenomena that Cheap Tickets experienced in undergoing the transition to a purely online site some three years ago. So why did EBITDA at TDS decline? As we alluded to at Investor Day, much of the decline had little to do with performance. Some of the component parts included: These three factors alone aggregate $30 million of challenges that even Orbitz's strong performance couldn't overcome. Galileo and our supplier services business also had a solid quarter with revenue increasing 5%, primarily due to an 8% growth in international air booking fees, and 2% growth in domestic air booking fees. Negotiations with the airlines for contract renewals are proceeding, and as you know, we have already entered into five-year agreements with United and U.S. Airways. For the second quarter, we expect TDS’ EBITDA, excluding separation costs, to be about flat but to grow in the back half of 2006. We remain comfortable with the full year 2006 projections we gave for TDS at investor day, with EBITDA growth likely around the middle of the range. Just a quick note on vehicle rental. Our 15% growth in car rental revenue reflects both volume and pricing growth. Volume grew 13%, principally reflecting increased airport share for Avis and Budget. EBITDA was slightly better than we had expected. At the same time, year-over-year pricing increased for the first time since 2004. year over year price increases will become more obvious as we lap the low point in pricing in last year’s second quarter. In contrast to last year when we aggressively committed to fleet growth, and as a result grew rental day volume in the mid-teens in both brands throughout the second through the fourth quarters, we will not grow our fleet by the same amounts this year. As a consequence, our revenue growth will be more driven by price than volume increases in those same periods this year. Leisure price increases are continuing to hold in the marketplace. Since June of last year, 7 have been instituted, and all have held with some consistency. Commercial increases are coming more slowly, but they have been coming. On the strategic front, we are making good progress in our off-airport initiative. During the quarter, we achieved growth of more than 20% in our off-airport business. In the second quarter, we expect year-over-year pricing growth to improve further, particularly as corporate contracts to cycle through renewal. However, as we said at Investor day, we don’t expect pricing to reach equilibrium with higher fleet costs until later in 2006. As a result, prior to consummating our new financing arrangements, we expected that EBITDA, as measured on ascendant basis, would be down in the second quarter but approximately flat in the back half of the year. As you will see, as a result of our recently completed financing, we have replaced secured vehicle financing debt with our newly issue unsecured debt, which will result in lower interest expense above the EBITDA line but higher interest expense below the EBITDA line, so on a reported basis, vehicle rental’s EBITDA will actually be up significantly for the back half of the year. Last, we indicated on investor day that we were unlikely to generate positive free-cash flow in the first quarter, and as I’m sure you noted in the press release, we generated -$83 million of free cash flow. First quarter is historically our softest free cash flow quarter, and you’ll see from looking at our financials that approximately $250 million of the $300 million variance from last year was explained by a decline in pre-tax income after adding back the non-cash valuation charge that was associated with the PHH spin-off in the first quarter of ’05, and from a $79 million year-over-year increase in tax payments. The total of $101 million of tax payments in the quarter represented taxes due in connection with the sale of marketing services in 2005. Nevertheless, we did complete our share repurchase program, through which we’ve repurchased $1.3 billion of stock net of option exercises since January 1, 2005, which has enabled us to reduce our diluted share count by 6% in the first quarter of ’06 versus the first quarter of ’05. In the second quarter, we expect operating cash flow to increase versus the first quarter and free cash flow to be significantly positive. With that, Henry and I would be pleased to take your questions.
Thank you, gentlemen. (Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Jeff Kessler of Lehman Brothers.
Thank you. First, I realize that Dollar Thrifty has a very, very different business model than the Avis Budget group. They’ve said on their conference call they expected higher depreciation costs to be hitting them throughout the rest of this year, and that they were going to offset that in various ways, and obviously, with a more leisure base, they can do it on a day-to-day basis. What is your view with regard to the possibility that the auto manufacturers may try to stick the industry with another big price increase in the form of depreciation, or do you think that they’ve gotten it? Has the industry basically pushed back hard enough and given them enough indication of how many cars you’re going to buy if they do it again?
I think it’s hard to handicap what the car manufacturers are going to do in the ’07 model year. We are just beginning our negotiations with all of the manufacturers. I think it is unlikely that there will not be any fleet increases, but I think it is too early to tell whether they’re going to stick it to us or whether they’re going to be more moderate in their pricing. You know, I read the Dollar Thrifty review and the good news that I took away, I think you put your finger on it, is they are principally leisure rental. They had a good quarter, and that tells you that the leisure price increases are actually delivering some positive contribution to the bottom line, but they clearly do have a different fleet strategy than we do. Their fleet was up I think 2% or 3%, whereas ours was up in the 13% range in the quarter. It is a different strategy.
Switching over to real estate, I know that you folks had a very aggressive acquisition campaign in NRT in the latter part of 2005, and indeed you actually bought seasonal losses for the fourth quarter and the first quarter. Can you quantify how much more losses you actually bought, and essentially how much more revenue, or EBITDA you’re hoping to generate in the second and third quarter, out of those NRT acquisitions?
We increased the number of offices in NRT by about 10% and since, as you point out, they lose money seasonally, you could argue we increased the losses of NRT by 10%. Correspondingly, since NRT makes virtually all of its profit in the second and third quarters, all things being equal, we should be able to increase the EBITDA by 10% in those two quarters. Now obviously, size, price and a variety of other issues factor into that, but as you know we continue to believe that NRT will be flat for the year, so if we’re saying it’s off in the first quarter, as it was, and then it’s off marginally in the second quarter, as we said in our press release, the math would tell you that we expect it to be up in Q3 and Q4.
On the franchise side, can you give some indication of how large or what type of increase in franchisees you guys have, relative to 2005?
Well, we’re targeting about $600 million of incremental GCI from franchising this year. The pipeline would indicate that’s a good number. That’s, in round numbers, $30 million to $35 million of annual royalties, assuming a 5% to 6% royalty range. There’s virtually no incremental costs against that, so that really should be, assuming you get half of that in 2006, as all the franchisees don’t open on January 1, obviously, that’s a big benefit to 2007’s upside.
If I’m getting my numbers right, about two-thirds of the EBITDA in real estate is generated by the franchisees? Does that have a broader base geographically, less skewed toward the Coast than NRT does?
Yes, but remember that about 40% or so -- first let me say, yes about 65% to 70% of the EBITDA comes out of royalty income from the franchisees. Remember that about 40% of that comes from NRT, but that simply either increases or decreases NRT's EBITDA. Yes, the skewing of our franchise model, excluding NRT, is much more US-centric than the NRT model. Let me make a point that I think investors may be missing, and that is there is a reason why we are so heavily concentrated on both coasts and the high end markets. The demographics are unbelievably compelling, and so if you get away from the fact that the comparisons last year were skewed to the upside because of those markets; we said last year if you recall that 39% increases in EBITDA, which we were reporting, were not sustainable in the real estate business, particularly considering how big we are. But the demographics are going to make this the right market to be in over the short, immediate and for sure, the longer term. You want to be in Florida. You want to be in California, you want to be in New York and Boston. Those are the markets that you must be in if you are going to have a successful real estate franchise and brokerage business.
One final question on NRT and then I will get off. Last year, at least in the Form 10 that was filed, it was shown that NRT actually was down slightly in terms of EBITDA, or in earnings, in 2005 and there were a number of investment costs that went into NRT to get those lower numbers. What is your investment schedule in NRT and at what point in time, assuming all things are equal in the real estate business, does NRT begin to grow its bottom line again?
We consistently tried to buy about $300 million of GCI every year for NRT, that is probably between $150 million and $200 million of investment. I would assume that would be the same level we would target for this year. It might be slightly higher, it might be slightly lower. Obviously, anything larger than that we would certainly not do pre-spin, because we do want to get through the SEC process and a material acquisition -- not that there is anything that we are planning, but a material acquisition would change that. I think you should assume, as we said on Investor Day, plus or minus a couple hundred million dollars going to NRT deals during 2006.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Next we will hear from Justin Post of Merrill Lynch.
Hi, Henry. I have a question on potentially selling TDS or going private. Why do you feel like going private is a better option? Do you feel like the valuations in the private markets would be higher than the public market? Then I have a follow up on Orbitz growth in the quarter.
Well we don't know. We don't know whether the valuations will be higher, but that is the purpose of basically conducting a strategic alternative process to see whether or not the valuations will be higher than what we and our advisors believe the values may be for TDS post-spin. Basically, look at the multiples of Expedia and Sabre and assume we trade somewhere in that range, and your guess is probably as good as mine as to whether we will achieve those levels or higher from the premium standpoint in terms of a private equity buyer. We don't know whether -- we are going to do one of the two things. Either sell TDS or spin it, and we will do whatever is going to create the greatest amount of shareholder value.
Great. And then the U.S. numbers look strong, we expect you to gain share based in your numbers. Has it been that you have been able to take share of hotel bookings from your competitors, or do you think your site has just been under monetized as far as hotel and package offerings, and you are just in a catch up phase right now?
I think it is more the latter than the former, Justin. We had enormously effective marketing this quarter, our traffic was up substantially all across the board in airline, car and hotel. Transactions were up. I do think that a good portion of it has to do with the fact that Orbitz is just now getting into the packaging business in a meaningful way. They are stepping up their efforts in the merchant hotel business. They weren't historically in the merchant hotel business until sometime late in 2004. So I think it is just the combination of our moving up the growth curve plus very effective marketing in the quarter and I think we did probably take some share from our competitors, but I don't think that was the primary driver.
And moving on to Michael Millman of Soleil Securities.
On the very good gross bookings growth from your hosting of supplier corporate sites --
I am sorry, I think we missed part of your question, Mike.
I was wondering if there was an impact on the growth from hosting of some of the supplier corporate sites that you've been getting into over the last year.
We do host some of the corporate sites, and I think that does contribute to the growth. I think that actually we are a little too early to put any real strong numbers against them in terms of how much they actually contributed. This is both a fee-based business -- or principally a fee-based business when we host these sites.
That connection, you would think that would add to your raw margin, but in fact you still have a very low raw margin. Anything in the numbers that we are missing?
Well keep in mind that the agreement that we inherited from the four founding airlines pays a lower fee to Orbitz on those bookings than some of the other OTAs would get on the same bookings. That agreement also had a step down in it over the course of the past year, which is impacting Orbitz's numbers. I think that is probably why you are looking at a lower revenue conversion on that.
Last year you forecast, or guided that the new agreements might cost Galileo and Apollo something on the order of $50 million this year. Is that number still good, and what do you think the effect would be on the '07?
Mike, I don't think we ever gave guidance for what the impact of the new agreements with the airlines would be, and I think all we have said is that we feel comfortable with the numbers that we put in our business plan, and continue to feel comfortable having now completed two agreements. I don't believe that we've ever quantified what the impact of those agreements were and are.
Would you care to quantify them now?
Can you give us an idea of what the Galileo margin is likely to be this year and whether you think that will go down next year?
Look, there are two things that are coming into play, Mike and I do think Galileo margins will be modestly down. We are certainly entering into agreements that give the airlines additional discounts over the next few years, which will impact margins. Again, keep in mind that the domestic airlines are only a third of Galileo's business, the other two-thirds are outside of the United States, so it is going to be diluted by that percentage. Secondly, there continues to be pressure on FA and Galileo has gotten modestly more aggressive over the past year in terms of trying to regain some of the share it lost by stepping up to the plate on FA. So both of those things taken together will have an impact on margins, and so it would not be wrong to assume that they are going to go down, but I think we are talking modestly because of the proportion of domestic revenue on our income statement.
A quick question on lodging. The number of rooms was down sequentially and down more year-over-year than it was in the fourth quarter. Can you give us an idea of why? When that is going to turn around?
Well I am a little hesitant. We keep saying that it is going to turn around every quarter; we had forecasted that it would slow down in the third quarter of last year and then the fourth quarter; the rate at which rooms are attriting is reducing in ever quarter. I think as we start to lap the years, they will start to flatten out. I do think that the acquisition of Wyndham of and acquisition of Amon is going to give us the opportunity to retain [non-controlled returns] where people are moving or rotating into upscale brands, and so I think that is going to help us hang on to the better franchisees that are rotating out. At the end of the day, we are so big in rooms, Mike, that the focus for us really needs to be REVPAR. We are not likely to move the needle much on 517,000 rooms up or down, quite honestly. REVPAR is really the story.
Chris Gutek - Morgan Stanley, has your next question.
I have a couple of questions. The first one for Henry, now that you are officially considering a sale of the TDS business, once the other three businesses get separated, post-spin on a tax-free basis, could you comment on your receptiveness to potential sales of those businesses if they don't get valuations as public companies that you find satisfactory?
Sure. First of all, let me repeat for the record and for anyone on the call that we can't have any arrangement pre-spin to sell something post-spin. We have no such arrangement, plan, scheme or hope or dream. That said, I can only speak for Realogy where I will be the Chairman and CEO for the first 18 months. The board, I would assume and I certainly as the CEO would recommend, that we monetize that asset at an appropriate value if the marketplace is not willing to do that. Now I have to assume, knowing many of the directors of the rental car business and of the hospitality business, that they would feel similarly. I do not want to speak for Ron or for Steve Holmes and their boards, and as you know, I will not be on those boards. But we are determined to enhance value. We would not be going through the brain damage of this four-way split up unless we thought there was a very significant upside for all of this activity that people are going through.
Thanks, Henry, and I might be pushing my luck by following up on the question, but in the past on occasion you have shared some of the valuation assumptions that Cendant's financial advisors have made regarding the value as public company entities. Have your advisors also done valuation assumptions in a sale scenario for the businesses? If so, would you be willing to share some of those numbers?
Well they are higher than the break-up analysis on a standalone basis, I think that goes without speaking. But I don't think it really is relevant as to the specific as to whether it is nine times, 11 times, 10 times EBITDA or whatever. But it obviously is higher, we think and our advisors think than in a standalone basis. That is why we are looking at the opportunity for TDS.
Fair enough. A couple of quick follow ups on the fundamentals. So for the Realogy business, the industry data we have seen some pretty good numbers, relatively healthy numbers for existing as well as new home sales recently. I am curious if you think that is more weather-driven or if you have actually seen similar trends in your business; including trends, if you have seen numbers so far for April. Would you characterize the business as maybe performing a little bit better than you thought at the Analyst Day, or is that being optimistic?
I think it is probably being optimistic. I think that at the Analyst Day and as I said earlier on the call, we said that the market would moderate through the first half of the year, that we thought our share would get better in the second half as well as the market getting better and that that would enable us to be flat for the year as a whole, and we haven't changed that forecast. I am not sure of the NAR data, as you and I have discussed in the past, I am not sure the NAR data is terribly relevant. They typically sample, and I repeat the word sample, only 20% of the MLS and then they adjust those numbers with a number of variables. I think that with 30% of the market, as we believe we have, at least on price and size in terms of dollar volume, that statistically you could argue we are the market, so our results are much more likely to be accurate as to the market than whatever NAR is projecting or whatever NAR has reported. Then one more on the e-bookers business, in the press release you guys reported the aggregate loss between e-bookers and Gullivers. I am curious if you could give us just the e-bookers component of that for Q1 and what your latest expectation is for the e-bookers loss for the full year of '06?
You know, Chris we generally don't break out operating units, losses. I think at Investor Day we did say we expected e-bookers to lose about $30 million this year and you know, I don't think we've changed our outlook on that for the balance of the year. I do think we feel much better about it, having looked at some of the positive steps that the new management has taken over the past quarter and some of the improvements that they are making, but that is really the only number that we've disclosed.
Gentlemen, there are no further questions. We will turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you very much for what probably is the last Cendant conference call, at least in this iteration, and if there is another conference call in August we look forward to seeing you then.
That does conclude today's conference.