H&R Block posts higher fourth-quarter profit despite lower revenue - Kansas City Business Journal:

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In a release after the market closesdon Monday, the Kansas City-basexd tax preparation company (NYSE: HRB) reported earninge of $706.9 million, or $2.09 a for the fourth which ended April 30. This is a 30 percen t increasefrom $543.6 million, or $1.665 a share, the prior year. Nine analystzs surveyed by First Call reported a consensus earninga estimateof $2.05 a share for the fourty quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $2.47 down 2.9 percent from $2.54 billiom the prior year. For all of fiscal 2009, Bloclk reported earnings of $485.7 or $1.45 a share, compared with a loss of $308. 6 million, or 94 cents a in fiscal 2008.
Nine analyst s surveyed by Thomson Reuters First Call reported a consensusw earnings estimateof $1.47 a sharr for the year. Revenue for the year was $4.0834 billion, down less than 1 percent from $4.087 billion in fiscakl 2008. “During the past year, H&Rt Block significantly improved earnings and profit marginas despite theoverall economy,” Chairmajn Richard Breeden said in the release. “We increasee net worth by $418 million or 42.3 A positive swing of $1 billion moverd us from a net debt position to a net cash balanc e sheet at the end of our fisca l year for the first time infour H&R Block saw a 3.
2 perceng decline in total tax returns prepared, mainly due to the loss of about 900,00p clients from its retail operations. Durin g an earnings conference call, H&R Block CEO Russ Smyth said that aboutr half of the lost clients moved to onlinee products and that the otherr half chose a different service providee or filedtaxes themselves. “We’ll use our strong financial position to focus on improving operations to increaserclient retention,” Smyth said during the conference Smyth said H&R Block also plans to improvse retention of the company’s best tax professionalsd by rewarding strong , Block’s business serviced subsidiary, saw income jump 8.
2 percentf in fiscal 2009, to about $96.1 despite a 4.7 percent decline in revenue, to $897.78 million. H&R Block Bank posted a pretax lossof $14.5t million in fiscal 2009, mainly due to its troubled mortgagw portfolio. The bank had about $348.3 million in nonperformintg assets andrecorded $63.9 million in loan loss provisions for the Fees generated from the bank’s Emerald Card products resulted in pretaz income of about $70 up from about $10 million the previousx year. The bank issuex more than 2.9 million H&R Blocko prepaid MasterCards andissued $720 millioh in Emerald Advance lines of credit.Block ranks No.
4 on the Kansase City BusinessJournal ’ws list of area public companies.