Cannae Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNNE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Massey: We paid 1/3 of liquidation value for Minden. So it was sort of an exception to that we don’t see a better deal out there because it was just such a screaming purchase. And the CSI is a $84 million investment. We’re not in the lead on that. It’s doing well, growing about 8% or 9% top line. Expanding margins, doing all the stuff you’d expect a Frank Martire run company to do, that’s going to do fine. But there’s no liquidity event for that. We just bought it last — what summer — 1 year, 1.5 years ago.

Kenneth Lee: Got you. Very helpful there. And then just one follow-up. I think in the prepared remarks, you briefly mentioned that there was a $25 million capital raise for BKFC where Cannae participated. Could you just talk a little bit more about what the capital raise was for and the potential longer-term outlook for there?

Bryan Coy: Yes. So we raised about $62 million for BKFC, about $25 million of that was Cannae. There were some incremental opportunities to acquire some players as well as some opportunistic capital. So we brought in a — we brought in Ryan Sports Ventures, who’s an institutional investor that owns other teams and other sports properties. And we think they can be helpful as a longer-term partner. So this was — so it’s a bit — we got some additional players that we weren’t — that I’d say kind of were a little bit outside of where we thought, as well as we wanted opportunistic capital for the business going forward.

Kenneth Lee: Got you. Got you. And if I could just follow up on that one. Remind me again, in terms of the — for AFC Bournemouth, when it comes to the transfer budget, is the source of the funding capital from BKFC? I just wanted to get a little bit more details around that.

Bryan Coy: It’s a mix of — it’s a mix of basically being funded with the operating revenues of the business. And then in certain instances, we may put in additional capital to try and fund incremental or additional players. So it’s kind of a mix. I think going forward, we hope that it will be — it will all be funded internally as we start to sell some players. But today, it’s kind of a mix of revenue from the business as well as kind of what I’ll call holdco capital.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question will come from John Campbell of Stephens Inc.

John Campbell: Rick, thanks for all the details on the buybacks. It sounds like you guys have definitely done all of your homework and you know exactly what you can and can’t do. So no more questions there for us. We’ll leave it at buybacks just basically continue to be a major focus for you guys. I think it’s probably a fair statement. But on…

Richard Massey: Let me just say so — so at some point, our volume limits are going to permit us to buy back. So let me just do some rough math, and I’m not making promises. But if we were to buy back or a maximum, which would be roughly 100,000 shares a day, 200,000 — I’m sorry, 20 million, say, 200 trading days a year, which is probably a little high. Let’s call it, 20 million shares. I mean, that gets you down to 50 million and continuing down our buybacks, you’re going to buy back maybe 10% a quarter if you keep those volume levels up. So we’re — Ian asked earlier, can you go faster? If we keep going down this path, we’re going to go faster.

John Campbell: Right. Makes a lot of sense. I mean it seems — like I remember the commentary at your Investor Day 2 years ago, you’d buy it back to the last share — right. It sounds like you guys are kind of living up to that for sure. But on Bournemouth, just looking at the season thus far, I’m curious if you guys are starting to see the benefits from any of the operational improvements you guys have put in place? And Ryan, I know you talked to the overall BKFS revenues being up 30%. So maybe if you could isolate Bournemouth maybe in terms of — I don’t know what the key metrics are, if it’s revenue per match, average attendance, sponsorships, whatever you guys kind of look at? How are those metrics trending for you guys?