Yellow Pages (TSX:Y) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Yellow Pages' fourth quarter 2025 earnings release call. Today's conference call contains forward-looking information about Yellow Pages' outlook, objectives, and strategy. These statements are based on assumptions and are subject to important risks and uncertainties. Yellow Pages' actual results could differ materially from expectations discussed. The details of Yellow Pages' caution regarding forward-looking information, including key assumptions and risks, can be found in Yellow Page's management discussion and analysis for the fourth quarter of 2025. This call is being recorded in webcast, and all of the disclosure documents are available on the company's website and on CDAR. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mrs. Sherlyn King, President and Chief Executive Officer.

0:49 Please go ahead, Madam.

0:53 Thank you, Josh. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2025 analyst call and year-end for 2025. We really appreciate your interest in joining our call today. I am joined by Asunta Tortoise, our Chief Financial Officer. I will begin with some overview comments, and then Asunta will dive into more detail on our financial results for the quarter and the year. We will answer any questions that you may have at the end of our call. We are quite pleased with our results reported for fourth quarter in 2025. In the fourth quarter, we delivered good profitability, a strong cash balance, and we continue our momentum across our revenue initiatives. We continue to see encouraging progress on key revenue drivers as the decline rate of total revenues all improved year over year.

1:47 Our total revenues for fourth quarter ended on December 31, 2025, and decreased by 6.5% year-over-year. The total revenue decline of 7.4% for the year 2025 compares to a 10.3% reported for 2024. We also reported good quarterly earnings. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter and full year was 20.8% and 21.6% of revenue respectively. We have a strong cash balance at approximately $64 million at the end of January 2026. As announced on May 21st, 2025, the company intended to voluntary contribute an additional $4 million to the defined pension plan by the end of June 2026 subject to review by its board of directors.

2:44 On February 11th, 2026, our board approved the completion of the remaining 2 million of the announced voluntary cash contributions by the end of the first quarter of 2026. Our board has also declared a dividend of 25 cents per common share to be paid on March 16th, 2026 to shareholders of record as of February 25th, 2026. I will pass it to Assunta to provide additional details on our numbers. Thank you.

3:19 Thanks, SK. Good morning, everyone. Let me take you through our financial results for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2025. Our total revenues decreased by 3.4 million or 6.5% year over year and amounted to 48 million for the fourth quarter. The year over year decrease in revenues is mainly due to the decline in our higher margin digital media and print products and to a lesser extent, our lower margin digital service products, thereby creating pressure on our gross profit margins. Furthermore, Print revenues were favorably impacted by the recognition of approximately $0.5 million in revenue deferred from the third quarter due to the Canada post-worker strike.

4:04 Had the deferred print revenues been recognized in the third quarter, the decline rate for total revenues would have been 7.4% for the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to 8.1% reported for the same period last year. Digital revenues decreased 5.6% year-over-year and amounted to $39.7 million during the fourth quarter of 2025, an improvement from the decrease of 6.2% reported last quarter. The year-over-year decline is mainly attributable to a decrease in digital customer count partially offset by an increase in average spend per customer. Revenues decreased 10.9% year-over-year and amounted $8.4 million for the three-month period ended December 31, 2025.

4:52 The decline in print revenues is mainly due to the decrease in the number of print customers, while the spend per customer has improved year-over-year driven by price increases. Again, excluding the impact of the Canada Post labor disruption as described earlier, the year-over-year decline in print revenues would have been 15.6% for Q4 2025. The total revenue for excuse me, the total revenues for the full year of 2025 totaled 198.9 million, a decrease of 7.4% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter improved due to efficiencies from optimization in cost of sales and reductions in other operating costs. These include reductions in our workforce and associated employee expenses, reductions in variable compensation expense resulting from changes in the executive management team earlier in the year, and the impact of the company's share price on cash-settled stock-based compensation expense, these efficiencies were partially offset by revenue pressures and the ongoing investments in our telesales force capacity.

6:03 As a result, adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year by 2.3 million or 27.3% to 10.5 million for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 21.8% compared to 16% for the same period last year. The reevaluation of the cash settled stock-based compensation liabilities based on the change in the YP's share price resulted in a recovery of 0.3 million during the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to a charge of 1.5 million for the same period in 2024. Revenue pressures coupled with continued investment in our Salesforce capacity partially offset by continued optimization will continue to cause some pressure on margins in upcoming quarters.

6:49 Adjusted EBITDA for the full year of 2025 was 43 million or 21.6% of revenues. Adjusted EBITDA less capex for the fourth quarter increased by 2.4 million year-over-year to 10.1 million, driven by higher adjusted EBITDA and a decrease in capex spent year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA less capex for the full year 2025 was 41.5 million or 20.9% of revenues. As SK mentioned, as we announced on May 21, 2025, the company intended to voluntarily contribute an additional 4 million to the remaining defined benefit pension plan by the end of June 2026. On February 11, 2026, our board approved the completion of the remaining 2 million of the announced voluntary contributions by the end of first quarter 2026.

7:40 Net income increased to 7.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to 2.7 million for the same period last year due principally to higher adjusted EBITDA and lower income taxes. For the full year 2025, net income totaled 18.1 million. As of December 31, 2025, our total workforce decreased to 499 employees compared to 565 for the same date last year, a decrease of 11.7%. Our cash on hand at the end of January stood at approximately 64 million. As SK also mentioned, the board has declared a cash dividend of 25 cents per common share payable on March 16, 2026 to shareholders of record as at February 25, 2026. This concludes our formal remarks. Thank you for taking the time to join us this morning.

8:38 We will now take your questions. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. One moment for questions. And I'm not showing any questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mrs. King for any closing remarks.

9:10 Thank you, Josh. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. We truly appreciate it. And we will speak with you again next quarter in May of 2026. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.