Pre-Paid Legal Blog

Pre-Paid Legal Services Rise Due To Higher Revenues

Monday morning, Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. (PPD | charts | news | PowerRating), a company that develops, underwrites and markets legal service plans, announced financial results for the first quarter, reporting higher net income on increased revenues.

The Ada, Oklahoma-based company said that net income for the quarter rose to $13.07 million or $0.84 per share from $8.95 million or $0.57 per share in the same period of the previous year. The company said that net income increased primarily due to lower associate services and direct marketing expenses and although total commissions paid were higher in 2006 period compared to the 2005 period, commissions were lower as a percentage of membership revenues.

Revenues for the quarter rose to $109.96 million from $100.89 million in the same period of the previous year. The company said that the main contributory to revenues were membership fees which represented $101.74 million of revenues for the current quarter compared to $92.50 million in the same period of the prior year. During the first quarter, the company returned $16.2 million to shareholders through the repurchase of 448,426 shares at an average per share price of $36.05 and also paid $4.6 million in dividends.

At March 31, 2006, the company's total indebtedness was $33.7 million and we had unpledged cash and investment balances exceeding $50 million.

PPD is currently trading at $35.56, up $0.49 per share.

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Pre-Paid Legal Announces Additional Stock Repurchase Authorization

ADA, Okla., April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. (NYSE: PPD - News), today announced that our Board of Directors has authorized an additional repurchase of 1 million shares, as we have purchased 9.9 million shares of our previously announced stock repurchase authorizations totaling 10 million shares.

Pursuant to the repurchase program originally announced on April 6, 1999, we have returned $238.7 million to shareholders through the purchase of 9.9 million shares, average price of $24.20 per share, and $17.1 million in dividends for a combined total of $255.8 million representing more than 115 percent of our net earnings during the same timeframe. We believe the flexibility to repurchase shares, pay a dividend, or both enables us to maximize the long-term per share value of our common stock, by making a decision to repurchase shares or pay a dividend or both based on market conditions and our cash position. We are fortunate to have a business model that allows us to grow and still produce excess cash. We think of our shareholders as long-term partners. Our goal is to use every excess dollar of cash to improve the value of each share.We have reduced the number of shares outstanding by approximately 37% from 23.7 million at March 31, 1999 to approximately 15.0 million today. Purchases pursuant to the new repurchase authorization will be made at prices that we consider attractive. We expect to begin purchases after our 2006 first quarter earnings conference call scheduled for April 26, 2006. No time limit has been set for completion of the additional share repurchases.

Pre-Paid Legal Services Announces Additional Stock Repurchase Authorization: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

 

 

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