Black Box Corporation Preliminary Third Quarter and Year-to-Date Fiscal 2007 Conference Call - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the third quarter fiscal 2007 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Later there will be an opportunity for questions, and instructions will be given at that time. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] If you should require assistance during the call, please press star zero. And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like the turn the conference over to Fred Young, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

FRED YOUNG, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT, CEO, BLACK BOX NETWORK SERVICES: Thank you, very much. Good evening from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As you heard, my name is Fred Young, CEO of Black Box Corporation. With me today is Michael McAndrew, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we announced our preliminary third quarter fiscal 2007 results by issuing a press release and furnishing it to the SEC on Form 8-K. We also posted this press release on our website at www.BlackBox.com. This financial information is preliminary and subject to change as described under the caption review of stock option practices in the press release.

We will start today's call with a brief overview of results and certain additional supplemental information. Following this, we will field questions as time allows. Before we begin, and as a reminder, matters discussed in this call may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning Black Box's expected financial performance.

Actual results may differ materially from expected results, and the results shouldn't be considered as an indication of future performance. Potential factors that could affect our business and financial results include changes in economic conditions, [inaudible] general market and the market at large.

Additional, factors are included in our most recent Form 10-K and the press release including the outcome of the review of the Company's stock option practices and the related informal SEC inquiry and shareholders derivative lawsuit. On this call as presented in today's press release we will discuss some financial information and include non-GAAP financial measurements including operating net income, operating earnings per share and free cash flow. We will limit any non-GAAP financial discussion today to these specific measurements.

As I said earlier our press release was filed with the SEC and posted to our website prior to this all. Please refer to the schedules that accompany the press release for a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measurements to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measurement and other supplemental information. With that let's take a look at the results. We're very pleases to report revenues of 265 million for our December quarter. This level of revenue represents 45% growth over last year's 182 million. It also represents the second highest quarterly revenue we've ever reported.

In addition, our nine months revenues have grown 40%, setting a new record at 767 million. We have generated more revenue in the nine months this year than we did in our entire previous fiscal year which was about 721 million. This type of significant growth and associated increase in market share are what we have been and continue to be focused on. With Black Box now operating at the billion dollar level of annualized revenues, we are tuning our associated cost structure accordingly. To this end we are making steady progress with the exterior one integration.

Our goal is to finish the bulk of this integration within the next six to nine months. The contributing results of this integration program are consistent with our goal to achieve our operating earnings per share and cash flow targets for fiscal '08 which starts in April. More specifically for FY '08 we currently are targeting total year revenues of approximately a billion dollars. Corresponding operating earnings per share in the range of $3.45 to $3.65. In cash provided by operating activities in the range of 80% to 90% of operating net income.

Looking more deeply at our third quarter revenues by the two segments we report, again, I would refer you to the schedules in the press release. The highlights are as follows. First, from a service type segment perspective, our third quarter revenues was comprised of 61% or 161 million of voice services, 22% or 58 million of hot line services, and 17% or 46 million of data services.

Voice service is now clearly our dominant service at 61% of our total business. This in its own merit is a significant transformational accomplishment over the past year or so. In addition, it has …