Press Release Details

KANSAS CITY, MO -- (Marketwired) -- 12/08/14 -- H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE: HRB), the world's largest consumer tax services provider, today announced its financial results for the fiscal 2015 second quarter ended October 31, 2014. The company typically reports a second quarter operating loss due to the seasonality of its core U.S. tax business.

Second Quarter 2015 Highlights ¹
▪   Total revenues increased to $135 million
▪   Seasonal net loss from continuing operations increased 10 percent to $113 million, or $0.41 per share ²
▪   Non-GAAP adjusted loss per share ³ from continuing operations of $0.45
▪   Declared 209 ^th consecutive quarterly dividend

CEO Perspective
"I am pleased with the progress we've made this offseason in preparation for tax season 2015. We've made important investments in our business this year, which will enable us to improve the customer experience and operate more productively in the coming years," said Bill Cobb, H&R Block's president and chief executive officer. "Our Tax Plus strategy is yielding results, and we look forward to continuing our strong momentum this tax season."

Second Quarter Results From Continuing Operations

Business Segment Results and Highlights
Tax Services

• Revenues increased 1 percent to $129 million, driven by higher tax prep fees in the U.S. and Australia, and improved off season usage of the H&R Block Prepaid MasterCard, the Emerald Card®
• Total operating expenses increased 6 percent to $302 million, driven by higher depreciation and amortization from planned office and technology upgrades and increased wages
• Adjusted non-GAAP pretax loss increased 13 percent to $178 million

Corporate

• Total expenses increased $1 million to $30 million, primarily due to higher wages, partially offset by lower provisions for losses on mortgage loans held for investment
• Pretax loss increased by $4 million to $24 million

Discontinued Operations

• Net income of $1 million compared to net loss of $2 million in the prior year
• Sand Canyon Corporation (SCC), a separate legal entity from H&R Block, Inc., continued to engage in constructive settlement discussions with counterparties that have made and are expected to assert a significant majority of previously denied and possible future representation and warranty claims
• On December 5, SCC entered into a settlement agreement to resolve certain of these claims. The amount to be paid under the settlement agreement is fully covered by prior accruals
• SCC's accrual for contingent losses related to representation and warranty claims remained unchanged at $194 million at October 31

Dividends
A previously announced quarterly cash dividend of 20 cents per share is payable on Jan. 2, 2015 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 8, 2014. The January 2 dividend payment will be H&R Block's 209^th consecutive quarterly dividend since the company went public in 1962.

Investor Conference
At 8:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday, December 9, the company will hold its investor conference in New York City. H&R Block's senior leaders will outline the company's strategies and outlook, and provide a general business update including discussion of fiscal 2015 second quarter results.

The event will be broadcast live in a listen-only format for the media and public on H&R Block's investor relations website at http://investors.hrblock.com. A replay will be available on the company's website two hours after the conference ends and continuing until February 28, 2015.

About H&R Block
H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE: HRB) is the world's largest consumer tax services provider. More than 650 million tax returns have been prepared worldwide by and through H&R Block since 1955. In fiscal 2014, H&R Block had annual revenues over $3.0 billion with 24.2 million tax returns prepared worldwide. Tax return preparation services are provided in approximately 12,000 company-owned and franchise retail tax offices worldwide by professional tax preparers, and through H&R Block Tax Software products. H&R Block Bank provides affordable banking products and services. For more information, visit the H&R Block Newsroom at http://newsroom.hrblock.com/.

About Non-GAAP Financial Information
This press release and the accompanying tables include non-GAAP financial information. For a description of these non-GAAP financial measures, including the reasons management uses each measure, and reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, please see the section of the accompanying tables titled "Non-GAAP Financial Information."

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They often include words or variation of words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "projects," "forecasts," "targets," "would," "will," "should," "could" or "may" or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements provide management's current expectations or predictions of future conditions, events or results. All statements that address operating performance, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will occur in the future are forward-looking statements. They may include estimates of revenues, income, earnings per share, capital expenditures, dividends, liquidity, capital structure or other financial items, descriptions of management's plans or objectives for future operations, products or services, or descriptions of assumptions underlying any of the above. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and reflect the company's good faith beliefs, assumptions and expectations, but they are not guarantees of future performance or events. Furthermore, the company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect changes in underlying assumptions, factors, or expectations, new information, data or methods, future events or other changes, except as required by law. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, a variety of economic, competitive and regulatory factors, many of which are beyond the company's control and which are described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2014 in the section entitled "Risk Factors," as well as additional factors we may describe from time to time in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should understand that it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors and, consequently, you should not consider any such list to be a complete set of all potential risks or uncertainties.

¹ All amounts in this release are unaudited.  Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons refer to the current period compared to the corresponding prior year period.
² All per share amounts are based on fully diluted shares.
³ The company reports adjusted financial performance, which it believes is a better indication of the company's recurring operations.  The company also reports EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), a non-GAAP financial measure, which the company finds relevant when measuring its performance. See "About Non-GAAP Financial Information" below for more information regarding financial measures not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

⁽¹⁾ The presentation of interest expense from borrowings has been restated to correct errors in presentation, whereby we reclassified such interest expense from cost of revenues to a separate caption.

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL INFORMATION
The accompanying press release contains non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Because these measures are not measures of financial performance under GAAP and are susceptible to varying calculations, they may not be comparable to similarly titled measures for other companies.

We consider non-GAAP financial measures to be a useful metric for management and investors to evaluate and compare the ongoing operating performance of our business on a consistent basis across reporting periods, as it eliminates the effect of items that are not indicative of our core operating performance.
The following are descriptions of adjustments we make for our non-GAAP financial measures:

• We exclude losses from settlements and estimated contingent losses from litigation and favorable reserve adjustments. This does not include legal defense costs.
• We exclude non-cash charges to adjust the carrying values of goodwill, intangible assets, other long-lived assets and investments to their estimated fair values.
• We exclude severance and other restructuring charges in connection with the termination of personnel, closure of offices and related costs.
• We exclude the gains and losses on business dispositions, including investment banking, legal and accounting fees from both business dispositions and acquisitions.
• We exclude the gains and losses on extinguishment of debt.
• We exclude the effects of discrete income tax reserve and related adjustments recorded in a specific quarter.

We may consider whether other significant items that arise in the future should also be excluded from our non-GAAP financial measures.

We measure the performance of our business using a variety of metrics, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted pretax income of continuing operations. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted pretax income eliminate the impact of items that we do not consider indicative of our core operating performance and, we believe, provide meaningful information to assist in understanding our financial results, analyzing trends in our underlying business, and assessing our prospects for future performance. We also use EBITDA and pretax income of continuing operations, each subject to permitted adjustments, as performance metrics in incentive compensation calculations for our employees.

For Further Information
Investor Relations: 
Colby Brown
(816) 854-4559
Email contact


Media Relations: 
Gene King 
(816) 854-4672  
Email contact

Source: H & R Block