NetSpend Holdings, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter 2010 Results

Feb. 24, 2011, 10:17 PM UTC / Source: GlobeNewswire

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 24, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NetSpend Holdings, Inc. ("NetSpend") (Nasdaq:NTSP) today announced financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2010.

Q4 2010 Highlights:

GPR card revenues up 22% and total revenues up 18% to $70.2 million in Q4 2010 as compared to $59.4 million in Q4 2009
GAAP net income up 80% to $6.3 million in Q4 2010 as compared to $3.5 million in Q4 2009
Fully Diluted Earnings Per Share up 75% in Q4 2010 to $0.07 as compared to Q4 2009 earnings per share of $0.04
Adjusted EBITDA¹ up 38% in Q4 2010 to $15.7 million as compared to $11.4 in Q4 2009
Adjusted Net Income¹ Per Share up 100% in Q4 2010 of $0.10 as compared to $0.05 in Q4 2009

Key Business Metrics for the Quarter Ended December 31, 2010:

Number of active cards of 2.1 million as of December 31, 2010 as compared to 1.9 million active cards as of December 31, 2009
Percentage of active cards with direct deposit of 34.2% as of December 31, 2010 as compared to 27.6% as of December 31, 2009
Gross Dollar Volume (GDV) of $2.5 billion during Q4 2010 as compared to $2.0 billion during Q4 2009

"2010 was just a great year for NetSpend and we could not be more pleased to announce fourth quarter results that continue to demonstrate performance," said Dan Henry, chief executive officer of NetSpend. "We also could not be more excited to announce our strategic alliances with First Acceptance Corporation and The General Automotive Services, Inc., two of the leading auto insurers of the underbanked. These agreements further solidify the position NetSpend has established in the non-standard auto insurance vertical."

Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2010 Results

GPR card revenues, which exclude gift card revenues, increased 22% compared to the same quarter of 2009. Total revenues were $70.2 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, an increase of approximately 18% over the $59.4 million of revenues recorded in the same quarter of 2009. This increase was due primarily to the increase in the average number of active cards of approximately 12%, offset in part by the decline in gift card related revenue due to NetSpend's decision in 2008 to cease marketing gift cards. Gift card revenue declined approximately $1.8 million to $0.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Net income was $6.3 million, an increase of 80% over net income of $3.5 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2009. NetSpend's net income for the quarter ended December 31, 2010 includes an aggregate amount of $6.5 million of net interest expense, income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization. NetSpend's net income for the quarter ended December 31, 2010 also includes approximately $2.9 million in stock-based compensation expense. For the quarter ended December 31, 2009, the comparable amount of net interest expense, income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization was $6.8 million, and we incurred approximately $1.1 million in stock-based compensation.

2011 Outlook

NetSpend reported that it expects full year 2011 revenue to be between $323 and $333 million, its adjusted EBITDA to fall between $85 and $90 million and its adjusted net income per fully diluted share to be between $0.44 and $0.49.

The foregoing expectations reflect the following assumptions:

An effective tax rate of approximately 40%;
Non-cash equity compensation of between approximately $9.5 and $10.5 million;
Cash outlays for capital expenditures for the full year of between approximately $7 and 9 million;
An effective cost of debt capital of approximately 3.5%; and
Fully diluted shares outstanding for the full year of approximately 95 million.

Investor Conference Call and Webcast

NetSpend will host an investor conference call to discuss its fourth quarter 2010 results today at 5:00 p.m. ET. The conference call can be accessed live over the phone by dialing (877) 853-5634 or for international callers (707) 287-9375. A replay will be available two hours after the call and can be accessed by dialing (800) 642-1687 or (706) 645-9291 for international callers; the conference ID is 39853991. The call will be webcast live from NetSpend's website at http://investor.netspend.com.

Non-GAAP Financial Information

To supplement NetSpend's consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"), this press release includes EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income are not measures of financial performance under GAAP. Accordingly, they should not be considered a substitute for net income, operating income or other income or cash flow data prepared in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures may be different from similarly-titled non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. We believe that the presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures provides useful information to management and investors regarding underlying trends in NetSpend's business and provides improved comparability between periods in different years. Reconciliations between GAAP measures and non-GAAP measures and between actual results and adjusted results are provided at the end of this press release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, and Rule 3(b)-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements contained in this release, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. NetSpend cautions you that reliance on any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties and that although NetSpend believes that the assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, any of those assumptions could prove to be inaccurate, and, as a result, the forward-looking statements based on those assumptions could be materially incorrect. These factors include but are not limited to:

NetSpend's dependence on a limited number of distributors of its products;
increasing competition in the prepaid card industry;
exposure to cardholder and other losses;
NetSpend's reliance on its relationships with its issuing banks;
future actions against, or restrictions imposed upon, MetaBank by OTS;
regulatory, legislative and judicial developments in NetSpend's operations area;
changes in regulations impacting interchange fees;
changes in card association or network rules;
NetSpend's ability to protect against unauthorized disclosure of cardholder data;
fluctuations in customer retention rates;
general economic conditions;
NetSpend's ability to promote its brand;
NetSpend's reliance on payment processors and service providers;
changes in NetSpend's relationships with its issuing banks; and
NetSpend's ability to protect its intellectual property rights.

The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those projected are discussed in greater detail in NetSpend's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including NetSpend's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2010, which are available on NetSpend's website at www.netspend.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. All information provided in this release and in the attachments is as of February 24, 2011, and, except as required by law, NetSpend does not intend to update this information as a result of future events or developments.

About NetSpend

NetSpend Holdings, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of general-purpose reloadable prepaid debit cards to underbanked consumers in the United States. NetSpend is one of the largest dedicated providers of GPR cards in the U.S., focused on providing the estimated 60 million underbanked U.S. consumers with innovative and affordable financial products. More information about NetSpend can be found at .

The NetSpend Holdings, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=8154

¹Reconciliations of Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income to net income are provided in the tables immediately following the consolidated statements of cash flows. Additional information about NetSpend's non-GAAP financial measures can be found under the caption "About Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

(1) We use a non-GAAP financial metric that we label "Adjusted EBITDA" to evaluate our financial performance. We compute Adjusted EBITDA by adjusting net income or net loss to remove the effect of income and expenses related to interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, and then adjusting for stock-based compensation, and other non-recurring gains and losses. We believe that Adjusted EBITDA is an important metric for the following reasons:

It provides a meaningful comparison of our operating results over several periods because it removes the impact of income and expense items that are not a direct result of our core operations, such as goodwill and intangible impairments, legal settlements and one-time settlement gains and losses on the early extinguishment of long-term debt;
We use it as a tool to assist in our planning for the effect of strategic operating decisions and for the prediction of future operating results;
It functions as a threshold target for our company-wide employee bonus compensation; and,
We use it to evaluate our capacity to incur and service debt, fund capital expenditures and expand our business.

Settlement (gains) and other losses during the twelve months ended December 31, 2009 relate to $9.0 million of recoveries of excess funds from our issuing banks for fee and chargeback recoveries and $1.2 million resulting from the settlement of certain litigation. Settlement (gains) and other losses during the twelve months ended December 31, 2010 relate to a $3.5 million loss related to a patent infringement dispute and a $0.8 million loss associated with a contractual dispute with a vendor.

The loss on extinguishment of debt during the twelve months ended December 31, 2010 relates to the $0.7 million write-off of remaining capitalized debt issuance costs associated with our prior credit facility.

(2) In addition to Adjusted EBITDA, we use a second non-GAAP financial metric that we label "Adjusted Net Income" to evaluate our financial performance. We compute Adjusted Net Income by adjusting net income or net loss to remove tax-effected amortization expense, stock-based compensation and other non-recurring gains and losses and we believe it is an important metric that is useful to our board of directors, management and investors for the following reasons:

Assets being depreciated will often have to be replaced in the future and Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect any expenditure for these items;
Adjusted EBITDA does not reflect the significant interest expense, or the payments necessary to service interest payments on our debt;
Adjusted Net Income provides a meaningful comparison of our operating results over several periods because it removes the impact of income and expense items that are not a direct result of our core operations, such as goodwill and intangible impairments, legal settlements, one-time settlement gains and losses on the early extinguishment of long-term debt; and
We believe Adjusted Net Income measurements are used by investors as a supplemental measure to evaluate the overall operating performance of companies in our industry.

By providing this non-GAAP financial measure, together with the above reconciliation, we believe we are enhancing investors' understanding of our business and our results of operations, as well as assisting investors in evaluating how well we are executing strategic initiatives.

(3) Our Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income are not necessarily comparable to what other companies define as Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income are not measures defined by U.S. GAAP and should not be considered as substitutes for or alternatives to net income, operating income, cash flows from operating activities or other financial information as determined by U.S. GAAP. Our presentation of Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income should not be construed as an implication that our future results will be unaffected by unusual or non-recurring items.

CONTACT: Investor Contact: George Gresham Chief Financial Officer (866) 979-1996 investor@netspend.com Media Contact: Brad Russell Corporate Communications (512) 539-5932 brussell@netspend.com