Western Union Co. (WU)
Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
October 20, 2009 8:30 a.m. ET

Executives

Mike Salop - Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Christina A. Gold - President and Chief Executive Officer
Scott T. Scheirman - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Gregory Smith - Duncan Williams Inc.
Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research
Bryan Keane - Credit Suisse
Tien-Tsin Huang - J.P. Morgan
James Kissane - Banc of America/Merrill Lynch
Jason A. Kupferberg - UBS
Julio C. Quinteros - Goldman Sachs
Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup
Christopher Mammone - Deutsche Bank North America
Robert Napoli - Piper Jaffray
Darrin Peller - Barclays Capital

Presentation

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the third quarter 2009 Western Union Company earnings conference call. My name is Lacy, and I''ll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. If at any time during the call you require assistance, please press star followed by zero and a coordinator will be happy to assist you. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today''s call, Mr. Mike Salop, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed sir.

Mike Salop

Thank you. And good morning. I’m pleased to have recently joined the company and I look forward to working with everyone in the future. Today''s call will include comments from Christina Gold, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Scheirman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Christina will provide a brief overview of the third quarter. Scott will give a more detailed review of the financial results and then Christina will update you on the company''s strategic initiatives. After the comments, we will have time for your questions.

As we indicated in our press release, we have prepared slides to accompany this call and webcast. They are available at westernunion.com under the Investors Relations tab and will remain available after the call.
Before I turn the call over to Christina, I want to remind you that today''s call is being recorded and that our comments contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary language in the earnings release and in Western Union''s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the 2008 Form 10-K for additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements.

During the call, we will discuss some items that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. We have reconciled those measures to the most comparable GAAP measures on our website westernunion.com under the Investor Relations section.

All statements made by Western Union officers on this call are the property of the Western Union Company and subject to copyright protection. Other than the replay, Western Union has not authorized and disclaims any responsibility for any recording, replay or distribution of any transcription of this call.

I would now like to turn the call over to Christina Gold.

Christina A. Gold

Thank you, Mike. And welcome to our third quarter call. The company delivered solid results in the quarter with reported revenue of $1.3 billion and earnings per share of $0.26 or $0.33, excluding a charge for an anticipated settlement involving the State of Arizona.

As you are probably aware, the legal and regulatory environment in Arizona has been challenging for our company for a number of years. During the quarter we accrued $71 million related to an anticipated regulatory settlement.

The anticipated settlement includes resolution of all outstanding legal issues and claims with the State of Arizona, as well as, a multi-state agreement to fund a not-for-profit organization which will promote safety and security along the entire U.S. and Mexico border. We have always had common policy goals with Arizona but have differed on the best procedures to achieve these goals.