eBay Inc (EBAY)’s Q4 2014 Earnings Call Transcript

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And Donahoe and his team are doing just that. They’re moving decisively and aggressively with clear priorities. First, improve traffic and conversion. Second, deliver strong product experiences and engage our target customers. And third, manage our cost structure and find investments that re-engage eBay buyers. We’re also sharpening our strategy with greater focus on the core consumer segment where we believe eBay can win. Savvy shoppers who love great value, unique selection, discovery and engagement. And re-deploy resources to our top priority and scaling back or stopping our initiatives.

That said, 2015 will be another challenging year. And we expect eBay’s performance to soften further before we see stabilization and improvement. We still have work to do. However, eBay continues to be a great business. In 2014, eBay enabled $83 billion in GNB and generated $3 billion in free cash flow. And even if low growth rates are expected for 2014-2015, eBay can still deliver strong cash flows in healthy margins. Separation strongly supports eBay’s need to focus on work and win and to fully align its strategy, cost structure and capital allocation. And that’s good for eBay’s customers and for eBay’s shareholders.

Turning briefly to eBay Enterprise. Gross merchandise sales in Q4 were up 9% and revenue was up 9%. eBay Enterprise is a good business, and Craig Hayman is bringing a sharper strategic focus to how eBay Enterprise can compete and win as a leading commerce partner to brands and retailers. We’re taking a closer look at eBay Market Places and eBay Enterprise going forward, and it’s clear that the 2 businesses have increasingly divergent opportunities. As a result, we’ve decided to explore strategic alternatives for eBay Enterprise, including a full or partial sale or IPO. Until this process is complete, we do not anticipate commenting further.

In summary, we are on the right strategic path, and we’re acting decisively and aggressively as we position eBay and PayPal for success. We’re sharpening our strategic focus and streamlining our cost structure and our portfolio, and we’re creating operating agreements that preserve both synergies and strategic flexibility.

Regarding our cost structure. Our decision announced today to eliminate approximately 2400 positions, or about 7% of our global workforce, was a difficult one. Eliminating jobs is never easy. But these decisions were necessary at eBay, PayPal and eBay Enterprise to simplify the organizations, reduce complexity, speed decision-making and create competitive cost structures.
Before closing, I want to update you on our progress toward creating 2 strong boards for eBay and PayPal. NBC Universal executive Bonnie Hammer joined our board earlier this month. And today, I’m pleased to announce the addition of seasoned Wall Street executives Perry Taquina and Frank Eary. Bonnie, Perry and Frank will bring tremendous value and expertise to our current board. In addition, we announced today an agreement with Carl Ican, our largest active shareholder. This agreement reflects our alignment on separation and our shared belief in the benefits of avoiding distraction. As part of this agreement, Ican Capital executive Jonathan Christodoro will be joining our board as our fourth new director. We look forward to welcoming Jonathan to the board.

Looking ahead, we are clear in what we need to do to deliver our 2015 plans and ensure a smooth separation process, and we’ll continue to do what’s best for our business, for our customers and for our shareholders.
Now I’ll turn it over to Bob, who will provide more details on the quarter, and then we’ll take questions.

Bob Swan – Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, John. During my discussion, I’ll reference our earnings slide presentation that accompanies the webcast.
In the fourth quarter, we enabled $72 billion of commerce volume on behalf of our customers. Mobile commerce volume was $17 billion, up 59% from last year. Revenue was $4.9 billion, up 9%. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.90, up 10%. We generated $1.3 billion in free cash flow in the quarter and we bought back $1.2 billion of stock.


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