Exhibit 99.1
MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION SECTION
Operator: Good day, and welcome to APACs Fourth Quarter 2008 Earnings Results Conference Call.
This call is being recorded.
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Harriet Fried of LHA. Ms. Fried please go
ahead, maam.
Harriet C. Fried, Investor Relations, Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates
Good morning, and thanks for joining us for the fourth quarter 2008 conference call for APAC
Customer Services. The Company issued a press release yesterday evening containing financial
results for the fourth quarter and full year 2008. This release is available on the Companys
website, as well as on various financial websites.
Company representatives on todays call are Mike Marrow, President and Chief Executive Officer, and
Andrew Szafran, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Before opening the call, I would like to remind you that statements about future operating and
financial results are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors
that could cause the Companys actual results to differ materially. Yesterdays earnings release
and the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2007, and its
most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q discuss some of these factors. The Companys
forward-looking statements speak only as of todays date.
To supplement the Companys consolidated financial statements, the Company uses certain measures
defined as non-GAAP financial measures by the SEC. A reconciliation of these results to GAAP is
attached to yesterdays earnings release, and additional information can be found in APACs Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 30, 2007, and its recent quarterly report.
The company has posted a downloadable presentation to accompany todays webcast in the Investor
Relations section of its website at www.apaccustomerservices.com. The presentation can be viewed
in the webcast section of APACs IR website by clicking on the link shown under the title of
todays event. It will also be posted under investor presentations after this call.
With that introduction, Id like to turn the call over to Mike Marrow. Go ahead please Mike?
Michael P. Marrow, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Harriet, and thanks everyone for joining us on our fourth quarter and year end
conference call. 2008 was a very active and successful period for APAC. So, we have quite a bit
to talk about today. As has become a tradition, were going to start with the results, Andrew
Szafran, our CFO will walk us through the Q4 results as well as our full year numbers. Following
that, Ill spend a few minutes and talk about the business in general and try to provide some
additional color. Go ahead Andrew.
Andrew B. Szafran, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Mike. Its great to report another quarter of improved results. For those of you
following along via the webcast, my commentary begins on page five of the PowerPoint.
Weve really accelerated our progress here at APAC in Q4. A year ago this quarter, APAC reported a
net loss of $1.9 million or $0.04 per share. Im very pleased to announce that for the fourth
quarter of 2008, we had positive net income of $5.1 million or $0.10 per share. This result also
includes the impact of a small amount of severance and restructuring charges. So lets take a look
at how we achieved these results. Fourth quarter 2008 revenue of $65.3 million was up 6% from
$61.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. We exited $9 million of largely seasonal Medicare
Part D, and marketing driven campaign business. We replaced that revenue with $13 million of new
business from both new and existing clients. Our revenue was also impacted on net by about $0.3
million from the migration of certain domestic business offshore.
Gross profit in Q4 was $12.3 million with the gross margin of 18.8%, compared to a gross profit of
$5.9 million or a 9.5% gross margin in the prior years quarter. This is an increase of just over
nine percentage points, and clearly demonstrates the efficiency improvements we have been making in
our direct labor, and functional support as well as reduced facility expense.
So, for the fourth quarter 2008, we showed a bottom line profit with net income of $5.1 million or
$0.10 per fully diluted share compared to a net loss of $1.9 million or a loss of $0.04 per fully
diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2007. This represents a substantial improvement in
profitability of $7 million. The most recent quarter also included the impact of $240,000 in
severance and restructuring charges primarily associated with changes in senior management. I
would also like to highlight the fact that the fourth quarters income before taxes of $5.1 million
is the highest level that APAC has achieved since the first quarter of 2002.
Moving on to adjusted EBITDA, we improved the quarter year-over-year by a factor of almost 2.9
times from $2.95 million to $8.6 million. 2008 full year revenue of $248.8 million was up 11% from
$224.7 million in the prior year. We exited $21.2 million of largely seasonal Medicare Part D and
marketing driven campaign business. We replaced that revenue with $45.9 million of new business
from both and new existing clients. Our revenue was also impacted on net by about $0.6 million
from the migration of certain domestic business offshore.
Gross profit for 08 was $40.8 million for a gross margin of 16.4% compared to a gross profit of
$20.8 million or 9.3% gross margin in 07. This increase of 7 percentage points shows the partial
year that is about three quarters worth of efficiency improvements we have already
highlighted. For the full fiscal year of 2008 APACs earned net income of $3 million or $0.06 per
share versus $5.1 million or $0.10 per share in 2007.
However, bear in mind that 2007 included a one-time tax benefit of $17.6 million, so comparing
income before taxes shows income of $3 million for 2008 versus a loss of $12.5 million in 2007.
Thats an IBT turnaround of $15.5 million. Full year 2008 also included the impact of $3.6 million
in severance and restructuring charges primarily associated with changes in senior management
versus the comparable amount of $1.6 million in 2007.
Adjusted EBITDA for 2008 was $23.1 million versus $6.8 million in the prior year, an improvement
factor of 3.4 times. The companys debt level dropped significantly by $20 million from $26.3
million at the end of Q4 07 to $6.1 million at the end of Q4 08. This also represents a $7.7
million reduction since the end of Q3 of 08, and has been driven by the following factors:
First and foremost we generated cash from our operations. Second, we held our DSO to 44 days which
is down about five days from Q3 and seven days from a year-ago. Third, we carefully managed our
net capital expenditures to $2.7 million for the quarter and $5.8 million for the year.
Id like to close by bringing everyones attention the very important fact that our leverage ratio
of debt to EBITDA has improved dramatically year-over-year from 3.9 times to 0.3 times. This is a
very enviable position for any company in any industry to be in, especially given the current
economic environment. So at this point Id like to turn the call back over to Mike.
Michael P. Marrow, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Andrew, thats great. Im quite familiar with these results but it was still nice to sit
back and listen to you walk through them for all those on the call. As everyone can imagine we are
pretty excited about our continued progress.
Early last year we announced our goal of putting APAC on the path to long-term consistent
profitable growth. I think our progression of improving results over the last year demonstrates
that we are on the right path. While many companies have been struggling just to stay even APACs
fourth quarter revenue rose 6% year-over-year and we went from a sizable net loss in Q4 of 2007 to
a net income of $5.1 million or $0.10 per diluted share in Q4 of 2008.
Based on the current economic environment, and barring any significant deterioration in our
clients businesses, we expect to see high single to low double-digit revenue growth in 2009, we
also expect to generate full year pre-tax profit margins for 2009 in the range of what we produced
in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The priorities weve shared in the past remain consistent as you can see on page seven in the
PowerPoint that accompanies our webcast today. Our first priority is to continually enhance the
quality and dependability of the services we provide for our clients without a doubt this is our
number one job. Its our clients who write our pay checks and happy clients translate into
opportunities. The additional work we continue to receive from our existing clients is a good
indicator of their level of satisfaction.
Our second priority is to maintain a constant focus on eliminating waste and reducing overhead, so
that we can operate as efficiently as possible. As with our focus on client satisfaction we have a
formal, focused meeting each and every week to discuss our progress on eliminating waste. Our next
priority is to win business with both new logo companies and existing clients. Weve enjoyed
significant growth with nearly all of our existing clients; were in the middle of ramping a couple
of new clients that weve signed late in the year and our pipeline has a number of good
opportunities for additional new business.
And none of this occurs without a great team. We continue to add top notch people in both our
domestic and international operations. Were building bench strength to ensure success with
existing and new clients alike. The management team is committed to staying ahead of the curve and
making ensure that our team is always prepared for the next opportunity. Weve worked hard to
ingrain these priorities into the APAC company culture and building on these principles, weve
executed our business turnaround faster than many would have expected.
As I mentioned in past calls we continued to hold our weekly normal meetings to ensure we are
delivering the level of service our clients expect, we are paying attention to our costs, we are
adding the highest caliber individuals to our team, and were taking right steps to attract quality
new business.
More specifically each week the top 25 to 30 managers in the company including myself have a
meeting to discuss our SLA performance, a meeting to discuss cost savings, the financial flash
meeting to ensure the month is on track and the sales pipeline meeting as well. These four
meetings are held separately to ensure that we dont get sidetracked and that we set aside specific
times to focus individually on each of these four important business drivers.
You may recall that in the fourth quarter we announced two substantial pieces of business with new
clients. In mid November we were awarded a multi-year contract to support customers for one of the
worlds largest wireless providers. Wireless continues to be a growth business and we now have
three very significant clients in this industry two domestic and one international.
In mid December the San Francisco Chronicle chose APAC for a multi-year contract to provide a
comprehensive suite of publishing related Customer Care Services. We continue to ramp our new
wireless client as well as the work we are doing for the Chronicle, and we expect these clients to
have a significant positive impact on our FY 09 results.
In addition to numerous other opportunities with existing clients our pipeline of new business
opportunities continues to strengthen as we enter 2009. We have prospects with companies across a
broad spectrum of industries including communications, entertainment, financial services,
healthcare, publishing and travel related services as well. We expect to see some of these coming
to fruition over the next several months.
So all-in-all its been a very encouraging year at APAC. We are very excited about the New Year
and expect to see continued progress. So at this point we are ready to take some questions. I do
need to emphasize we can only take questions on APACs performance for the past quarter and 2008 as
a whole. As you know an offer was made for the company in late January and APACs Board formed a
special committee to evaluate that offer.
The special committee also hired legal and financial advisors. We are not in a position here today
to comment on any of the work they are doing. So again we can only respond to questions about our
operational and financial performance of 2008, and we will be very happy to do that. So, operator,
please open the lines up for questions. Thank you.
QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION
Operator: Thank you sir. [Operator Instructions]. And for our first question well go to Al
Tobia with Sidus Investment Management.
<Q Al Tobia>: Hi, Michael, Andrew, how are you.
<A Michael Marrow>: Hey, Al.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Hey, Al good morning
<Q Al Tobia>: I have a question about the deal, but I think you can answer this one,
regarding the cost of the forming the committee, do you have an estimate as to those costs?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, Al we do not have any estimates on those costs at this point.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay. Will you at some point in the future be able to just sort of break
that out as a separate item?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, we have established a mechanism for tracking all of those costs.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay. Only because to the extent of the stock is trading above this at some
point in time, it may not be necessary to spend a huge amount of money. So, I just but I wanted to
know just that there is going to be a one-time, and you will be able to say okay this is what it
cost, and breakout several item.
<A Andrew Szafran>: That is our, thats our plan is to track those costs.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay, fine. With respect to the 6 million of debt is left, the short-term
debt, are you allowed to buy any stock back, before you retired that are there any covenants
against that, what is the term loan, what are the parameters in that short-term debt itself?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah. There are general customary restrictions on stock repurchases
but it doesnt mean that we couldnt go back to them with a specific proposal.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay because will your cash flow approximate your pre-tax earnings or
will non cash charges be higher than CapEx?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Non-cash charges will not be higher than CapEx.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay, will it be approximately equal or CapEx higher...
<A Andrew Szafran>: CapEx should be higher.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay.
<A Michael Marrow>: Well there is still a little math while were taking some other
questions.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay fine. I just want to see if I take 10% increase in revenue and then I
take your Q4 margin I get something in the range in the low $20 million of pre-tax, and Im
wondering if that is all available as cash flow if you elect to do any kind of continued capturing
whether its debt or equity?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah. The CapEx would be, following along with your math, the CapEx
would be reasonably below that level. So that we will continue to generate cash and pay down debt.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay. And then debt or retire equity if that cash flow is available.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Well.
<Q Al Tobia>: Price is right?
<A Andrew Szafran>: We have no specific plans to do that. So well either build up cash
or well investigate our alternatives.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay. And then to Mike regarding the guidance I know you are pretty
specific about in terms of no change with the customers but is the revenue guidance for 2009
assuming any new business closes in order to make that or is that all at a business that youve
already booked in ramping that through the year?
<A Michael Marrow>: Well there is a lot that went into looking at that including who were
our existing clients, what we expect to sign in new business, any erosion so a number of factors
went into that putting together, that...
<Q Al Tobia>: Right, but I guess you mentioned that your pipeline at new business was
strong, do you need to close that business turn it around and generate revenue off the new business
in order to make the plan or is the plan mostly based on business that you want?
<A Michael Marrow>: There would be some expectations for revenue from new business.
<Q Al Tobia>: Okay. Thanks.
Operator: Our next question, we go to Howard Smith with First Analysis.
<Q Howard Smith>: Yes good morning and congratulations to you and your team for a dramatic
turnaround throughout this year.
<A Michael Marrow>: Thanks Howard, and good morning to you.
<Q Howard Smith>: Thank you. Ive several questions here. Let me start with the
sequential growth in revenue, we usually do see this in Q4 due to seasonality, Im not sure were
expecting as much seasonality this year through the economy, maybe you could breakdown some of the
sequential growth between new customers, seasonal strength or just higher volumes from existing
programs?
<A Michael Marrow>: So, Andrew is looking at some numbers, while he is doing that, Ill
give you the top of the trees. A lot of the seasonal growth in the past came from a big ramp up in
Part D work, and this year a good portion of our growth was not Part D work. We had mentioned or
Andrew said we had exited certain dollars worth of work during the year replacing with other work.
I am happy to report that the most of the work that we exited was highly seasonal and replace with
work that is much more sort of level throughout the year.
<Q Howard Smith>: Okay. So, it sounds like that maybe as maybe another way to get at
this although I am interested in the detail. Would you expect a sequential drop-off due to kind of
seasonality as you look at 2009?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Are you talking about the first quarter?
<Q Howard Smith>: Yeah.
<A Andrew Szafran>: No. Were seeing continued strength Howard.
<Q Howard Smith>: Okay.
<A Andrew Szafran>: So, yeah, I was just looking at our various verticals and were seeing
sequential strength across the Board net of a little bit of a decline in publishing and part of
that publishing decline is attributable to the movement offshore in fact the vast majority of that.
<Q Howard Smith>: But, it sounds like its not just new customers coming out youre
getting increased volume with your existing programs.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, thats absolutely true, and Mike do you want to talk about kind
of our operational focus that makes that happen.
<A Michael Marrow>: Well, I guess I would just say generally speaking in the past we had a
drop-off from Q4 to Q1 because of Part D work and also because of our packaging client generally
dropped off. And this year we dont have the drop-off at Part D, but we also are enjoying the
ramping of several significant clients that we talked about that we signed late in the year whereas
in 2008 for sure there was not a lot of ramping going on in the first quarter.
<Q Howard Smith>: Okay. As we look at the domestic versus offshore, I dont know if
youre breaking out that revenue anymore, I didnt see it in the release?
<A Michael Marrow>: Well we didnt and I think I was asked this question early on, is our
strategy domestic or is our strategy offshore. And my answer was our strategy is to provide
alternatives to our clients and provide them with best cost, best location, best solution for them.
So, were kind of backing off on the distinction between domestic, near shore, off-shore and all
the in between varieties, were here to service our customers and its where ever they need to be.
<Q Howard Smith>: Okay. And final question Ill let somebody else take a turn here, you
have been very good on your SG&A and looking at ways to cut costs as you talked about. Is your
run-rate exiting the year kind of your December numbers and given you had an 8 percentage decline
sequentially below the $6.5 million quarterly run-rate?
<A Andrew Szafran>: So, whats your do you have a specific question?
<Q Howard Smith>: Will the SG&A, I mean, you came down, I assume its kind of your cost
cutting month-by-month. Is your current run-rate of SG&A in Q1 below $6.5 million?
<A Michael Marrow>: I think I would say the following that our SG&A in the fourth quarter
we have kind of rebuilt our sales team. So there is a new folks there. We didnt have the
tremendous amount of new business come on during last year. So, well see for sure were investing
in sales and their salaries and the associated commissions well be paying that we expect to pay on
new business.
I think interestingly enough from my perspective, SG&A is down and that covers a lot of things in
our organization. But, those are areas that include human resources, a finance group, a legal
group and so on. I think even though we are really down in costs and weve driven that down fast
Im super thrilled with their performance. Cost is down and performance and quality are way up in
those groups.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah. And, Howard the changes that weve made are all designed to
make our SG&A as leverageable as possible. So, over time as we grow it will increase, but not to
the same extent as our sales growth.
<Q Howard Smith>: Right, Id just say it looks to me like we might be troughing down and
this is probably about as low as we can go before it starts to come up. And it Ill follow up
but it sounds like thats the case. And congratulations again on fantastic results.
<A>: Thanks.
<A>: Thanks Howard.
Operator: Well go next to David Koning with Baird.
<Q David Koning>: Hey guys nice job.
<A Michael Marrow>: Thank you. Good morning David.
<Q David Koning>: Yeah. I guess, I was wondering another way to may be ask some other
questions about existing clients and how theyre looking at spending right now. What percent of
your clients, kind of ballpark do you expect to spend more with you next year, just having volumes
going up really and what percent might have volumes going down? And I guess you could talk a
little bit about, how some clients are probably moving some work to you as well as just having
their volumes go up maybe just talk a little bit about what portion of clients actually are
spending more with you and what percent maybe are having volumes come down?
<A Michael Marrow>: Well obviously our goal is to have them all stand well with us. And
everyone is being impacted in one way, shape or form from the economy. But if you think about the
industry were in, we are a tiny little fraction of the market and the growth that weve enjoyed
with our existing clients this year I would say the vast majority of it is not because theyre
growing its because we are working hard to do a good job, and so the work would be work thats
moved over to us from competitors. I couldnt sit here today and predict how our clients
businesses are going to do, they themselves have a hard time doing that. So our focus everyday is
do a great job, be efficient and if there is shrinkage in the amount of work that our clients are
sourcing to their vendors put ourselves in a position so that shrinkage happens to our competitors
and not to us.
<Q David Koning>: Okay thats helpful. So it really feels like the overall industry
volumes might be sounds like somewhat flattish but that you are gaining share and thats really the
way that you are getting to this high single low double digit type growth?
<A Michael Marrow>: Yeah and thats not to say that more companies are not looking at
outsourcing. Weve always said that in a down economy when companies are trying to look at ways to
save money were in a sort of a unique position because were one of those solutions on cost
savings. So I would expect there will be companies that outsource a lot today and its an embedded
part of their business strategy, they may outsource less and hopefully that less would go to
others. But it think there are companies that maybe traditionally havent outsourced a lot who
will be looking at it and we want to be in a position to capture some of that new business as well.
<Q David Koning>: Okay great. And let me just on the margins looking at your EBITDA
margins this quarter I think it was about 13% or so. Thats one of the best in the industry right
now, and Im wondering, maybe you can talk a little bit about why you think you are getting margins
so strong and, I guess secondly, how high can the EBITDA margin realistically go, could you do a
15% full year type EBITDA margin?
<A Michael Marrow>: Well I will tell you number one is not because of price. Were
competitive within the market I honestly think it goes back to focus its a daily focus on the
business, number one, we focus on doing a good job for our clients, number two, we focus on
efficiencies within the organization, utilization of our folks on the phone. So, I mean there is a
whole list of things that every single week we look at them and say how are we doing. So, its
vigilance more than anything.
<Q David Koning>: Good, and then, can they go to, could you get a full year 15% margin, is
that seem possible longer-term?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Weve spoken before about having our pre-tax margins as a goal between
9% and 13% with the 9% being at a time when we really did ramp training.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yes, so in the heavy growth mode there will be more towards 9% when we
really cruising along really more towards 13% and, we have a delta between pre-tax and EBITDA give
or take...
<A Michael Marrow>: A few Percentage points.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, a few percentage points, you can kind of calculate that in Q4.
So, in answer to your question.
<A Michael Marrow>: Its conceivable, to be, be perfectly honest Id rather be in the high
growth, high investment range than the cruising along range. So...
<Q David Koning>: Right, good, thanks a lot, good job.
<A>: Thank you.
<A>: Thanks, David.
Operator: Our next question, we go to Ron Chez.
<Q Ron Chez>: Good morning.
<A Michael Marrow>: Hi, Ron, good morning.
<Q Ron Chez>: I think the job was just so-so, guys.
<A Michael Marrow>: Okay. We are trying.
<Q Ron Chez>: I know, you are trying, but if you pickup the pace a little that would be
good, okay.
<A Michael Marrow>: All right, we will.
<Q Ron Chez>: All right. I have what at one-time as you are talking about business
here, and the existing business, it was a big deal to get the Part D business. So, now, you are
exiting that business, would you characterize that, I guess you would as business that wasnt as
profitable as you wanted it to be?
<A Michael Marrow>: Here is what I say about Part D, it was a big deal to get that
business, it was, its just a few years old, it was new for us, it was new for our clients. I
think, we provided a very valuable service and helping our clients to get that up and running, but
the reality is that we keep hundreds of seats virtually empty for a good part of the year so, that
we could service that during the short part of the year. I wouldnt characterize it is highly
unprofitable, the margins werent as good obviously as something where you would have, as the seats
full during the entire year. So, we were happy to do for our clients things have kind of
settled down, the massive number of people required during the enrollment fees and isnt there as
it was before. So, I think,
were happy and fortunate that weve converted the vast majority of those seats to work that has
performed for 12 months.
<Q Ron Chez>: And how is in that vertical, youve talked about several verticals, how is
your business in the healthcare vertical?
<A Michael Marrow>: Actually its great. If it sounded like were shrinking because of
the Part D I wouldnt say that at all, I think Andrew has, maybe some numbers you can share.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, if you look at the total healthcare vertical for the full year,
we were up 11.5%. If you take Part D out of that and so you look on what youd call a same store
basis. We were up 27%. So, healthcare is a terrific vertical for us.
<Q Ron Chez>: Is there one that matches those numbers. Is that the best one?
<A Michael Marrow>: In terms of growth?
<Q Ron Chez>: Yeah, well Andrews number thats very pleasant to hear that it was up same
store 27%, is that the top performing vertical in terms of growth?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah.
<Q Ron Chez>: Or does it even make a difference? I mean you dont have to spend a lot of
time on that?
<A Michael Marrow>: Im not sure, its big. I am not sure if its the top one, Andrew can
answer that. We obviously weve enjoyed growth in wireless and with the signing mid-year of our
offshore wireless customer and very late in the year of very large domestic customer. I expect to
see big growth in nice growth in 2009 from the wireless vertical.
<Q Ron Chez>: And...
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah Ron, Ive got the numbers. I would say it was our best
performing vertical, but telecom and managed services are follow sharply behind it.
<Q Ron Chez>: So, youve got good spread amongst the various verticals?
<A Michael Marrow>: Yeah.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yes.
<A Michael Marrow>: What we also did was we exited significant amount of revenue that was
marketing driven, seasonal, very spiky and replaced it with wireless and healthcare, we are happy
about that.
<Q Ron Chez>: Is all that marketing business gone now?
<A Michael Marrow>: It is.
<Q Ron Chez>: On the publishing vertical and the difficulties of all the newspapers, are
you continuing to do work for the Tribune, and do you think you can squeeze the money out of them
or some of it?
<A Michael Marrow>: We are continuing to do work for the Tribune. And that is its a
good plan and were happy to continue to service them.
<Q Ron Chez>: And Andrew, do you want to comment on hedging or do you just want to say
its in good order?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yes, our hedging is in good order on the Philippine peso, we have at
this point looking forward, we have about 50% of our overseas expenses hedged for 2009, with more
of a bias towards the first two quarters. But its all hedged comfortably and what we would say is
a favorable range
<Q Ron Chez>: and no speculation? Just pure hedging of expenses?
<A Andrew Szafran>: There are just pure hedging of expense. Yeah, we look at our fixed
expenses and our variable payroll expenses and thats the basis thats for what we use to hedge,
and as I had just mentioned we are at we target around 50%.
<Q Ron Chez>: Okay. And Mike, you talked about the first goal being quality, the KPIs,
do you want to comment on that?
<A Michael Marrow>: Yeah.
<Q Ron Chez>: Further or?
<A Michael Marrow>: Yeah, it was partially a repeat is that we are doing well. We are
we are more than focused on it, we are sort of obsessed with it. And the best indicator to me of
how we are doing is our current clients giving us additional business and the answer is yes.
<Q Ron Chez>: And just one more question, now did you did you hire somebody to run sales
or are you still doing that?
<A Michael Marrow>: I am in the middle of that.
<Q Ron Chez>: Okay.
<A Michael Marrow>: News coming soon, I believe.
<Q Ron Chez>: Okay. Did you get the other folks as I recall you had five sales people,
logo sales people and you were going to hire three more?
<A Michael Marrow>: Yeah. We have a couple of leaders and each of them has a team. And
the only spot that is empty is the top sales person that Ive been filling their role, and I am
anxious to let someone come in and fill that role on a permanent basis.
<Q Ron Chez>: So how many sales people are there now?
<A Michael Marrow>: Well, if you just think about those that are out soliciting work with
clients or respective clients.
<Q Ron Chez>: Right.
<A Michael Marrow>: There are eight.
<Q Ron Chez>: Okay, okay. Youve heard that before really good job and we appreciate it.
<A Michael Marrow>: Thank you.
Operator: And, we go next to Mark Cooper with Wells Capital.
<Q Mark Cooper>: Good morning.
<A>: Good morning, Mark.
<A>: Good morning.
<Q Mark Cooper>: I just the numbers are just fantastic, which even encourages my
objection to this whole buyout deal, Ill say that for the record. But having said, that Andrew
the cash that youve taken out of the balance sheet in the last year, are you done doing that,
are you at the levels that you think that business will operate at or is there more to be worked
out of that?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Are you talking Mark that as generating cash from operations?
<Q Mark Cooper>: Yeah, the working capital component value, you pay for that quite a bit
out of that end of the last year or so?
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah, I think if youre talking in terms of our DSO being in kind of
the low-to-mid 40s, we think thats a very good range to be in. And so, we do think thats
sustainable as we grow. But the big driver is going to be continued operating performance that
will generate cash and well maintain those working capital turns.
<Q Mark Cooper>: But no, well okay. I think that that answers my question.
<A Andrew Szafran>: Yeah.
<Q Mark Cooper>: All right, thank you.
<A Michael Marrow>: You bet.
Operator: [Operator Instructions].
And with that ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions on our roster therefore Mr.
Marrow, Ill turn the conference back over to you for any closing remarks.
Michael P. Marrow, President, Chief Executive Officer
Okay, great thank you. So Ill close by saying thanks again for joining us this morning. As you
know, were a results oriented company, and we look forward to our next call where well be sharing
the results of the first quarter of 2009. Thanks again.
Operator: And again ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude APACs fourth quarter 2008 earnings
results conference call. We do appreciate your participation. And you may disconnect at this
time.
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