Perdoceo Education (PRDO) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us for a 3rd Quarter 2026 earnings call. With me on the call today is Todd Nelson, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ashishia, Chief Financial Officer. This conference call is being webcast live within the investor relations section of the company's website at perdocioed. com. A webcast replay will also be available on our site for 90 days following the call. And you can always contact the Alpha IR group for investor relations support.

Let me remind you that this afternoon's earnings release and remarks made today include four looking statements as defined in Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended.

These statements are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to Perdocio Education Corporation and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause action future results, performance, business prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these four looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors identified in Perdocio's most recent annual report on Form 10K, subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, the company undertakes no obligation to update those factors for any forward looking statements to reflect future results, future events, developments, or change circumstances, or for any other reason.

In addition, today's remarks are for the non-GAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAP measures. The earnings release that companies today's call contains financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the GAP to non-GAP financial measures and is available within the investor relations page of the company's website.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Nelson.

Thank you, Nick. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the third quarter 2026 earnings call. Our portfolio of academic institutions continued to deliver results ahead of our expectations, including in the third quarter. We remain committed to support adult learners by offering flexible education pathways that help working professionals grow in their careers and to train and educate the health care workforce to provide quality medical care across communities nationwide. CTU and AIUS continue to serve a broad population of career minus students through fully online campus based and hybrid programs, while the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences prepares graduate level health sciences professionals in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, and nursing.

I'll begin with some key financial results in more detail and discuss the fourth quarter and full year 2026 outlook. As always, I want to thank our faculty, students, support staff, and employees across the organization for their continued dedication to serving and educating our students. Third quarter results reflect a strong operating performance as we continue to grow our portfolio of academic program offerings while maintaining a disciplined approach to expenses. Year to date, operating income grew 12.3% supported by a 2.6% increase in revenue as compared to the prior year period.

Perspective student interest remained strong while student retention continued to trend near multi-year highs. Net income for the quarter was 44.4 million or 70 cents per deluded share as compared to 39.9 million or 60 cents per deluded share in the prior year quarter. Our academic institutions continue to operate with disciplined expense management while making purposeful investments across academics, program development, technology, and student support teams.

With that context, here are a few additional highlights for the quarter. Total student enrollment grew 1.6% at the end of the third quarter, in addition to the strong retention rates, we continue to see good levels of prospective students looking to pursue a degree at one of our academic institutions. As she will explain these enrollment trends in more detail.

Next, our corporate student programs provide accredited degree opportunities to employees of these organizations, supporting their career advancement while helping corporations strengthen employee development retention. Total student enrollments from the corporate student programs at CTU and AIS continue to grow with and this remains a priority as we continue to make strategic investments in technology and personnel to support further student enrollment growth.

Lastly, our capital allocation decisions highlight among other priorities are continued to commitment to returning capital to shareholders. On November 5th, the board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.70 per share. Separately, we purchased 610,000 shares for a total of $19.9 million during the quarter. We expect dividends and share repurchases to continue to be a growing and integral part of our capital allocation strategy. At University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, there were approximately 4,500 students enrolled for the fall term.

Since the acquisition, the University has to continue to expand its program offerings through new modalities at existing campus locations, giving prospective students greater flexibility in how they pursue a degree. We expect the University to continue growing operating income as we increasingly utilize the scale and efficiencies we gain by bringing them into the Perdoso family. A SHISH will provide more detail on St. Augustine's results.

Before turning the call out of a SHISH, a brief word on our September 14th announcement, which we are very excited about. We signed a definitive agreement to acquire South University, an institution founded in 1899 in Savannah, Georgia, serving approximately 10,500 students across 11 campuses and through South University online. Once completed, this acquisition will firmly establish our graduate health sciences offerings and further extend the breadth and depth of our academic program offerings. South Clinical Health Sciences portfolio is anchored by four licensure-driven programs. The Master of Science in Physician Assistance Studies, the Master of Medical Science in Anesthesia Science, Anesthesiologist Assistant, Doctor of Pharmacy, and Nursing Programs at the Bachelor's, Masters, and Doctor of Levels.

South also offers Physical Therapists Assistant, Occupational Therapy Assistant, Public Health, and Counseling Programs. We expect to close as early as April 2027 subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory and accredited approvals. We believe our acquisition success over the past several years reflects a proven capability to expand the depth and breadth of our academic offerings, create operating efficiencies, enhance our institution's value proposition students, and create long-term value for our shareholders. As always, we remain disciplined in our approach to capital allocation and intend to act only when the right opportunity emerges.

In summary, we are pleased with the operating and growth trends across our academic institutions and remain optimistic as we close out 2026. Ashish will now provide more details on the financial results of our 2026 outlook and total student enrollment trends. Ashish?

Thank you, Todd. I will review our third quarter results, followed by our balance sheet and outlook for the fourth quarter and for the year 2026. Then I'll turn it back to Todd for his closing remarks. Please note all comparisons discussed on this call are versus the comparative prior year period unless otherwise stated. In addition, total student enrollment numbers and any reference student enrollment trends discussed during this call do not include learners pursuing non-degree seeking and professional development programs and degree seeking non-title for self-paced programs at our universities.

Turning to the third quarter, net income for the quarter was $44.4 million or $0.70 per deluded share as compared to $39.9 million or $0.60 bringing our year-to-date EPS to $2.31 and increase of 23.5% as compared to the prior year. For the third quarter, total enrollment increased by 1.6% while revenue increased 1.9% to $215.9 million with the year-to-date revenue now up 2.6% or $16.5 million as compared to the prior year to date.

Operating leverage remains strong as we continue to reinvest a portion of revenue growth in marketing, admissions and student support services while maintaining discipline cost management. Operating income for the quarter grew by 8.1% to $55.1 million while adjusted operating income which we believe is more indicative of our underlying operating performance and excludes depreciation, amortization and legal fees related to M&A activity grew 8.4% to $66.1 million as compared to $61 million, resulting in an adjusted EPS of $0.77 and increase of 18.5% as compared to the prior year quarter. From an operations perspective, both CTU and AIU system continued to invest in marketing and admissions during the quarter to serve the growing prospective student interest in our programs.

Our institutions also continued to leverage and explore technology including AI-based tools to strengthen academic outcomes and improve overall student experiences. At the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, introducing new modalities at existing campus locations continued to support growth by giving prospective students more flexibility in how they pursue a degree. St. Augustine prepares healthcare practitioners through a combination of on-ground and online offerings and its selective admissions process which generally requires prospective students to hold an undergraduate degree and complete a comprehensive application admissions process has allowed St. Augustine to maintain strong academic outcomes and student experiences. At CTU, total student enrollments remain relatively flat at 31,870 students while year-to-day revenue grew from an enrollment comparability perspective.

CTU continues to lapse strong record orders from last year while also graduating a record number of students in 2026 relative to 2025. These trends will peak in the second half of this year before normalizing in 2027. As a result, we expect reported total student enrollments at CTU to remain relatively flat as we move to the end of the year before experiencing growth in 2027. As we move beyond this period of record graduations, we believe we are well positioned for growth supported by strong prospective student demand, sustained high levels of student retention, and ongoing investments in student technology and support services. Together, we believe these factors will support long-term total student enrollment growth at CTU. CTU reported operating income of $44.9 million for the third quarter, which reflects investments in missions and marketing along with increased legal expenses related to the previously disclosed legal matters.

Excluding this year where you increase in legal fees, operating income and CTU would have increased versus the prior year quarter, highlighting our balanced approach towards growth-related investments. We have continued to reinvest revenue growth into marketing, academics, and other student support functions in a disciplined way, and we expect these investments to support long-term growth, but further enhancing academic outcomes and student experiences. We continue to optimize our website and marketing content to maximize institutional brand visibility as traditional search shifts towards AI and large language models. Simultaneously, we are refining our internal use of AI to more effectively engage with and enroll prospective students. Total student enrollments at AI system increase 7.5% to 10,830 students while operating income increase 24.9% to $11.6 million.

Please note that in addition to underlying growth trends in student retention and engagement, the academic calendar and the number of enrollment days in any given quarter will continue to affect quarterly enrollment comparability at AI system as it did this quarter.

With that in mind, and as previously discussed, we expect AI system to report lower total enrollments in the fourth quarter before rebounding in the first quarter of 2020.

Setting aside this calendar-driven variability, our underlying organic growth trends, namely student retention and interest from prospective students, remain strong, and we expect operating income to grow for the full year. AI system continues to invest in marketing and AI technologies across the student lifecycle and has launched new AI-focused academic programs, which have seen encouraging demand from students. The University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences achieves strong growth this quarter. Reported total enrollments increase 3.2% to approximately 45-60 students, and revenue rose 9.8% to $41.7 million for the quarter supported by new program modalities, strong execution, and brand recognition. The increase in total certain enrollments from prior year was primarily a result of growth in academic programs, such as nursing and speech language pathology, as well as the introduction of new modalities for the occupational therapy program.

Adjusted operating income was $11.7 million as compared to $7.2 million in the prior year quarter. The improvement reflected continued enrollment and revenue growth combined with operating efficiencies as the University continued to scale its operation.

In summary, St. Augustine will meaningfully contribute to the overall revenue and adjusted operating income growth for 2026, and is expected to further grow into 2027. Moving on to corporate and other, operating losses for the quarter were $6 million as compared to $6.1 million in the prior year.

Turning to income taxes, for the third quarter, we recorded a provision for income tax of $16.4 million, bringing our year-to-date effective tax rate to 22.7%. The year-to-date effective tax rate was positively impacted by 1.8% due to the resolution of a state income tax matter. We expect that for the full year 2026, our effective tax rate will be between 23 and 23.5%. As a reminder, various tax provisions from the 2025 reconciliation bill will, in general, continue to reduce cash expenditures per U. S. federal and state income taxes from what it would have been otherwise being. Additionally, various tax attributes acquired with the same acquisition of St. Augustine will also lower our federal and state income tax payments.

For 2026, we estimate our cash paid for income taxes to be in the range of 22% to 23% of pre-tax income. Turning now to our balance sheet and liquidity position, for the third quarter, net cash flows provided by operations were $79.7 million versus $41.2 million in the prior year quarter. And for the year-to-date, net cash flows provided by operations were $223.8 million versus $185.1 million in the prior year period, driven by timing of Title IV cash collections that came in a few weeks earlier, as compared to the prior year, as well as improvement in adjusted operating income. We ended the quarter with approximately $777 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and available for sales short-term investments, which represents an increase of approximately $133 million from our prior year-end position.

Key uses of cash during the year-to-date were $34.8 million of return of capital to shareholders in the form of stock repurchases, $30.3 million of dividend and dividend equivalent payments, $10.3 million for shared repurchases in connection with payment of taxes due by employees upon stock resting, and $5.4 million of capital expenditures. For the full year 2020 week, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately 1% of revenues.

Before turning to our 2026 outlook, let me take a minute to discuss our balanced and consistent approach to capital allocation. We are pleased to announce that consistent with our dividend policy and continued confidence in our long-term outlook, the Board of Directors declare a quarterly dividend of $0.17 per share payable on December 11, 2026 to the holders of record of Pradocio's common stock at a close-up business on November 27, 2026. Future quarterly dividend payments are expected to be paid out of free cash flows for the relevant year, subject to Board approval and the companies available retail earnings, financial conditions and other relevant factors.

As a reminder, we generally expect to review quarterly dividend amounts on an annual basis. During the quarter, we repurchase 0.6 million shares of our common stock, bringing our year-to-date purchases to 1.1 million shares. We have approximately $65 million of authorization remaining under our current share repurchase program, and we anticipate utilizing it over time, subject to market conditions, organic and inorganic investment opportunities, share valuation, and other factors that guide our discipline approach to capital allocation.

Subject to the requirements just mentioned, we continue to expect that quarterly dividend payments and shape repurchases will remain an integral and growing component of our capital allocation strategy. Before reviewing the outlook for the year, a quick note on the pending acquisition of South University. The consideration is all cash and fully funded from our available cash balances. No third-party financing will be required. We expect to pay an initial amount of approximately $130 to $150 million at closing, subject to customer adjustments for cash, networking capital, and certain agreed-upon debt-like items, as well as indebtedness and seller transaction expenses outstanding at closing. Subsequent to this initial cash payment, we will pay $18 million in deferred consideration over 24 months following the closing, and over a three-year period, up to $56 million of earn-out payments contingent on achieving specified EBITDA thresholds for fiscal years 27, 28, and 29.

We expect this transaction to be accreted to our adjusted operating income beginning in 2027 and to provide further growth in adjusted operating income in 2028. This acquisition is consistent with our balanced capital allocation strategy, which includes acquiring quality academic institutions and programs while continuing to return capital to shareholders to dividends and shared repurchases. Now, let us discuss our outlook for 2026. We now expect the full-year 2026 adjusted operating income to range between $260 million and $263 million. This compares to an adjusted operating income of $237.9 million in 2025, with the expected increase primarily due to assumptions for organic revenue growth across our academic institutions, while lower operating expenses in certain categories, should offset investments in marketing, academics, and other student support processes.

This outlook reflects our current belief that the consistent high levels of student retention and student engagement that we experienced through the third quarter of 2026, which will continue through the remainder of 2026. Prospective student interest in our academic programs will continue to remain at current levels, in part supported by incremental marketing investments. Any changes to regulatory or legislative environment will not have a meaningful impact on prospective student interest or necessitate any operational changes. Legal fees relating to litigation matters, which are included in the outlook range remain in line with companies' current expectations.

There will not be a material impact on student enrollments due to the elimination of grad plus loan program, the annual and lifetime graduate loan limits, or the ability to finance their education through private lending sources. Full-year revenue is expected to increase versus 2025, supported by the rollout of new program modalities within physical and occupational therapy at St. Augustine, and continued organic growth at CTU and AI system. At St. Augustine, we expect double-digit adjusted operating income growth for the full year, supported by growth in revenue and total student enrollments.

At AI system, while the academic session calendar will impact worldly enrollment comparability, we expect operating income to grow for the full year, supported by strong retention and engagement, and continued investment in marketing and admissions. Supporting our organic revenue growth expectations in CTU are strong levels of prospective student interest in academic programs, ongoing growth in the corporate student program, and investment in marketing, as well as the corporate student program. Partially offsetting these growth trends will be a record number of students expected to graduate in 2026 at CTU, and lapsing strong enrollment growth from previous quarters. For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect adjusted operating income to be in the range of 56.9 million to 59.9 million dollars, as compared to 51.6 million dollars in the priority of quarter, with adjusted earnings per diluted share to range between 68 cents and 72 cents per diluted share, versus 59 cents in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Our 2026 outlook also assumes continued investments in technology, data analytics, real estate, academics, and student support processes. We believe these investments have supported improved academic outcomes and enhanced student experience. In addition, we plan to continue expanding the corporate student program teams at CTU and system to support further growth and engagement. Please refer to our earnings release file today for important information about the key assumptions and factors underlying this discussion from today's call, as well as the gap to non-gab reconciliations.

With that, I will turn the call over to Todd for his closing remarks. Todd?

Thank you, Ashish. As I reflect on the third quarter, what stands out is the resilience of our portfolio of academic institutions and breadth of programs they offer. Pedosio continues to experience responsible and sustainable growth, which we're leveraging into improved learning experiences, academic outcomes, and operating results. We also have a strong balance sheet that can support investments in various academic and student processes while evaluating growth opportunities through acquisitions. I want to close by thanking our faculty and staff whose dedication to our students is the reason we can achieve results like these.

Thank you for your continued interest in Pedosio, and we look forward to updating you again next quarter.