Deltek Inc. Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

Deltek Inc. (PROJ)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

February 12, 2009 5:00 pm ET

Executives

Dave Spille – VP, IR

Kevin Parker – President and CEO

Mark Wabschall – EVP and CFO

Analysts

Bryan McGrath – Credit Suisse

Brad Phil [ph]

Michael Hubbard [ph]

Madesh Duro [ph]

David Bayer

Phil Rueppel – Wachovia

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon, my name is Tanya and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Deltek Fourth Quarter 2008 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator instructions) Mr. Dave Spille, you may begin your conference.

Dave Spille

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dave Spille, Vice President of Investor Relations for Deltek. Joining me here today are Deltek CEO, Kevin Parker and Mark Wabschall, our CFO.

I want to welcome you to today’s conference call announcing Deltek's financial results for our fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2008. The press release we issued this afternoon containing our financial results for the quarter and the year is available on our Web site at www.deltek.com. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on Deltek’s Web site or by dialing the following numbers 1-800-642-1687 or 1-706-645-9291. The access code for the replay is 80655386. Conference call replay is available through February 19, 2009.

During the course of this conference call, we may make forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. You can identify forward-looking statements by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect” or similar words. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed in these forward-looking statements for many reasons.

Any forward-looking statement in this conference call speaks only as of the date on which it is made. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Please refer to our earnings release for further information on forward-looking statements and for explanations on the use of non-GAAP financial information.

You can also obtain more information about Deltek, including review in our SEC filings and press releases by visiting www.deltek.com.

And with that, I’ll turn today’s call over to Kevin.

Kevin Parker

Thanks, Dave. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to our Q4 earnings call. As we've seen across the entire software industry, Q4 was an extremely challenging quarter and Deltek isn’t immune to the factors impacting other software companies. While we are impacted by many of the same economic forces, we also saw significant progress in many areas across the company, controlled our cost very carefully, focused on our profitability and cash flow, met our revenue goals and delivered bottom line results which exceeded our objectives and expectations.

At a high level we saw the same economic factors that we discussed in Q3 continue into the fourth quarter. License revenue from our A&E and professional services customers continued to be challenged as the global economic recession affected those customers the most adversely, directly impacting their confidence in the future and many of their businesses. The result in many cases was the post permanent delay of software purchasing decisions and the lengthening of sales cycles.

Well, our overall A&E pipeline remains healthy and we continue to be engaged with many of those customers, the primary concern of senior A&E decision makers is the continuing economic uncertainty, forcing many to adopt a wait and see posture regarding almost any new purchase or new activity. That wait-and-see attitude was universally felt across all segments of the A&E market with both our direct customers and with our channel partners.

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