News Corporation (NWSA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to News Corp's Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. Media will be allowed only listen only basis. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Michael Florin, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to News Corp's Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. We issued our earnings press release about 30 minutes ago, and it's now posted on our website at newscorp.com. On the call today are Robert Thomson, Chief Executive; and Lavanya Chandrashekar, Chief Financial Officer. We'll open some prepared remarks, and we'll be happy to take questions from the investment community. This call may include certain forward-looking information with respect to News Corp's business and strategy. Actual results could differ materially from what is said. News Corp's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ and contain cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information. Additionally, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measurements such as total segment EBITDA, adjusted segment EBITDA and adjusted EPS. The definitions and GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations of such measures can be found in the earnings releases for the applicable periods posted on our website. With that, I'll pass it over to Robert Thomson for some opening comments.

Thank you, Mike. We are delighted to report record profitability for our fourth quarter with a sterling 11% increase in revenue to $2.3 billion, whilst we generated $423 million in total segment EBITDA, soaring 31% over last year. That is correct, a 31% increase. And our net income surged 167% on a continuing operations basis to $230 million. Reported EPS for the quarter was $0.33 compared to $0.09 in the prior year, and adjusted EPS was $0.35 compared to $0.19. These results mean that we have posted 12 consecutive quarters of year-on-year revenue growth and 13 consecutive quarters of year-on-year total segment EBITDA growth on a continuing operations basis. That positive trajectory reflects our transformation to a company that is majority digital and has vastly expanded its portfolio of premium recurring revenues. The robustness of our strategy has allowed us to navigate tech and economic and political turbulence and given us a firm foundation for future growth. For the full year, annual revenues rose 7% to $9 billion and total segment EBITDA increased 15% to over $1.6 billion. It is particularly noteworthy that our margin for the fiscal year rose from 16.7% to 18%, and we are encouraged by the prospect of further margin expansion in the current fiscal year. A result of that enhanced profitability was a significant increase in our free cash flow, which rose 42% to $811 million, and our EPS surged 23% on a reported basis from $0.84 to $1.03 and 33% on an adjusted basis from $0.89 to $1.18. That stronger cash position enabled us to aggressively return capital to shareholders with the buyback accelerating to well over 4x the prior year's rate at $643 million for the fiscal year. As ever, we are acutely conscious of the importance of maximizing value for our shareholders. Before delving into the details of the quarter, it is worth reflecting on the profound importance of the AI age. Much of the world is being reshaped by artificial intelligence, but artificial intelligence itself is only as useful, only as trustworthy as the quality and integrity of its inputs. We believe News Corp is an absolutely critical participant in the emerging information ecosystem. Without our journalists, our authors, our data, our brands and our professional expertise, users will be drowning in a slimy sea of AI slop, a quadrant of content crap. That is why we remain dedicated to cultivating partnerships with those who have shown integrity at a time of institutional infelicities. We have trusted content relationships with OpenAI and Meta and are in advanced discussions with several other honorable companies. However, Under our woo and sue approach, we are also taking aggressive action against those who pilfer and profit from our work, whether that be the perplexing perplexity or Brave, a company Brave in name only, which has shamelessly stolen our content at scale. Our claims against Brave focus on their data for AI products, which illegally gormlessly sourced and repurposed copyrighted material for sale to third-party businesses. Their scheming started with masked web crawlers scanning our pages to ingest copyrighted articles and continued when they repackaged those stolen files and delivered near verbatim copies to enterprise customers, undermining legitimate content commerce and the very concept of creativity. Companies who buy from these pirates should know that they are in possession of stolen goods, and we expect our lawsuits to highlight and halt the murky illegal behavior of AI companies who steal and flagrantly fence our precious IP. Unfortunately, some of the world's better known companies are clients of these crass kleptomaniacs and better known companies should know better. Dow Jones delivered impressive results to close the year with fourth quarter revenues rising 7% to $644 million and EBITDA growth of 20% to $181 million. For the full year, the business recorded nearly $2.5 billion in revenue, an increase of 7% and $663 million in EBITDA, an increase of 13%. As you are aware, we outlined a path to $1 billion in EBITDA at the recent Dow Jones investor briefing, and it is fair to say that Almar and the teams are well on the way to reaching that milestone. Dow Jones B2B capabilities continue to flourish, accounting for 50% of segment EBITDA in Q4. Risk and Compliance revenues grew a healthy 11%, while Dow Jones Energy rose a modest 4% with the conflict in the Middle East, obviously having an impact on some clients and on potential clients. Nevertheless, the business has shown improved growth in the current quarter with a strong pipeline of new business as the need for our premium data, analysis and expertise remains robust. The expansion of enterprise subscriptions continued this quarter as the business benefited from deals with the likes of Bloomberg, Delta Air Lines and Charles Schwab. Our News business reported an increase in total subscriptions of 7% year-on-year to over 6.7 million, while circulation revenues improved and digital direct subscription ARPU accelerated. Digital advertising was also buoyant in Q4, rising 10%. And significantly, there has been continued momentum thus far this fiscal. Among various projects, we have been bolstering the powerful platform that is the Wall Street Journal with the launch of a flagship event, WSJ Sports, the next sports economy. We intend to extend our expertise in high-end sports intelligence for which there is burgeoning demand given the flourishing professional interest in investment, marketing, sponsorship and broadcast rights. In digital real estate services, both realtor.com and REA demonstrated remarkable resilience despite challenges in the U.S. and Australian housing markets. Together, they posted an emphatic Q4 performance with revenues rising 19% to $553 million, while EBITDA expanded 46% to $222 million. To repeat, EBITDA surged 46% compared to a year earlier. At realtor.com, revenues increased 13%, marking the third straight quarter of double-digit growth and the seventh consecutive quarter of year-on-year expansion, even though mortgage rates rose in recent months. Its success comes as premium offerings have expanded and yield has been increasingly optimized. The emphasis on high-quality leads combined with AI-inspired product innovation and assiduous assistance for buyers, sellers and realtors have transformed the business' fortunes, as has the team's emphasis on providing reliable real estate news and analysis, which has made realtor.com the largest site in America for residential property news. If you want to comprehend trends, places and prices, you must read realtor.com. And so according to Comscore, realtor.com has become the clear industry leader in consumer engagement. Total average visits per month to the platform increased share to 33% with 297 million in Q4, while an average of 5.5 visits per unique user gave realtor.com a significant lead over Zillow and nearly 3x the engagement of Homes.com. In Australia, REA revenues rose 21%, reflecting a strong quarter for residential listings, which expanded by 11% with Sydney and Melbourne each finishing ahead of prior year by 8%. The quarter also benefited from favorable ForEx fluctuations. With the successful announced sale of REA's India business last month, Cam McIntyre and the team are focused on realizing the company's potential and driving growth in lucrative adjacencies, including mortgage broking and enhancing services for buyers, sellers and agents. HarperCollins finished the fiscal year strongly with fourth quarter revenue of $566 million, exceeding the prior year by 15%, while EBITDA rose 14% to $57 million. The quarter hosted a strong front list, including Sarah A. Parker's rollicking romantasy, The Ballad of Falling Dragons, J.D. Vance's Communion and Ann Patchett's Whistler. As for the backlist, Shelby Van Pelt's enduring Remarkably Bright Creatures benefited from the success of the Netflix adaptation and the Pheromone Phenom Game Changer series was certainly searing and soaring both on and off the ice, thanks to the hot and bothered heated rivalry. Digital demand was robust with revenues growing 12%, supported by a 16% audiobook boost and an e-book resurgence of 11%. And we have an eclectic lineup of looming releases, including works by Sylvester Stallone, Mr. Beast in collaboration with James Patterson, Cher and the already legendary R.F. Kuang. In addition, we will likely benefit in coming months from our share of the $1.5 billion settlement with Anthropic, which will be compensating authors and publishers for IP claims related to AI. And this will certainly not be the last litigation related to AI. And so we expect compelling cash-rich legal sequels. In News Media, revenue grew in the quarter by 5% to $574 million, thanks to favorable ForEx fluctuations and higher circulation and subscription revenues. In the U.K., under Rebecca Brooks' leadership, the business benefited from the World Cup with news broadcasting posting a 40% increase in streaming hours to over 9 million hours for the fourth quarter, and bookings would have been even more lucrative had England prevailed. Our team is eagerly looking forward to the imminent relaunch of the Premier League and ideally more successfully preeminent London Club, Arsenal. The New York Post benefited from the triumph of the New York Knicks, while our audience in Region California continued to expand with the launch of an addition in San Francisco to complement the Los Angeles edition. And editorial impact in the state and around the country under Keith Poole continued to burgeon. In Australia, we celebrated the official launch of the News24 brand last month, replacing the traditional Sky News moniker. It was certainly more than a change in name only as the new arrangement allows our team there to expand our editorial reach far beyond Australia's borders, where many of our presenters already have a significant profile and a resonant voice. We have already seen in recent days a tangible increase in audience reach. It was certainly a challenging year for many media companies, but News Corporation reported record revenues, record margins and record profits on a continuing operations basis. It was indeed a record year. We believe that auspicious momentum will carry over to this fiscal year and early signs are certainly positive for the first quarter. The company cherishes its principles and traditions. But as is characteristic of our founding family, we will never be complacent. We are restless in the pursuit of principles and progress, and our teams have boundless energy and insatiable curiosity and creativity. In closing, I would like to pay sincere tribute to our teams around the world and express our collective gratitude to the shareholders who have been supportive on this auspicious journey. I must highlight the acute, astute leadership of our Chair, Lachlan Murdoch and our august Board of Directors who play a crucial role in assisting us to navigate with nous, as does our Chairman Emeritus, Rupert Murdoch. And now I see to our Chief Financial Officer, Lavanya Chandrashekar, who will expound on our excellent results and propitious prospects.

Thank you, Robert, and good afternoon, everyone. Our fourth quarter full year results demonstrated the strength and resilience of our portfolio and the disciplined investment into our core growth engines. Fiscal 2026 marked another big step in the transformation of News Corp as we added new AI licensing revenues, accelerated the pace of product innovation, meaningfully improved profit margins and cash conversion while stepping up our capital returns program. We took steps to streamline and simplify our structure, including most recently with the announcement of the divestitures of REA India and Moving.com at realtor. We delivered record profitability in the fourth quarter, marking our 13th consecutive quarter of year-over-year total segment EBITDA growth on a continuing operations basis. Our focus on operational efficiency has driven meaningful margin expansion, and we see substantial runway for further improvement. We have posted updated slides to the Investor Relations section of the News Corp website. The slides highlight how the company has been repositioned and transformed into a digital-first company with 61% of fiscal 2026 revenues now digital. We have delivered consistent total segment EBITDA growth underpinned by our core growth engines, including 3 consecutive years of mid-teens profit growth on a continuing operations basis. Importantly, we have accelerated the growth of free cash flow, which rose over 40% this year. While many analysts appreciate that News Corp has a very valuable portfolio of assets, with which we certainly agree, we are also now delivering EBITDA and free cash flow growth at a faster rate than most companies in our peer group. We have demonstrated strong earnings and free cash flow power, built-in financial flexibility and a clear focus on maximizing value. We believe our stock is materially undervalued, and we will remain focused on levers to drive value. To that end, we made strong progress in returning value to our shareholders and have accelerated our share buyback program in fiscal 2026. In the fourth quarter, we repurchased $184 million in shares. The fiscal 2026 buyback was $643 million, which was over 4x that of fiscal 2025 at $150 million. As a reminder, share repurchases in fiscal 2026 benefited from the approximately $380 million repayment of Foxtel shareholder loans. For today's discussion, I will focus on the quarterly results. Turning to the quarter. Revenues for the quarter were over $2.3 billion, up 11% year-over-year, and total segment EBITDA was $423 million, up 31%. Margins expanded by 280 basis points to 18.1%. This marked the highest fourth quarter profit on record, even when including contributions from Foxtel in prior year and our fastest quarterly growth in 4 years. Our core growth engines, Dow Jones, Digital Real Estate Services and Book Publishing continued to generate outsized performance and collectively, their segment EBITDA growth in the quarter was 30%, accelerating from the third quarter rate. On an adjusted basis, revenue increased 7% and total segment EBITDA grew 25%. Earnings from continuing operations were $0.33 per share compared to $0.09 in the prior year. Adjusted EPS were $0.35, up from $0.19. Turning to Dow Jones. Dow Jones continued to execute against the strategic and financial objectives we outlined at our investor briefing in March. On a full year basis, our B2B products and services accounted for more than 50% of segment profitability, underscoring the ongoing successful transformation of the business. We remain on track to achieve our goal of generating $1 billion in segment EBITDA by fiscal '30. As a reminder, a replay of the investor briefing, along with the accompanying presentation materials is available in the Investor Relations section of the News Corp website. Fourth quarter was another record quarter with revenues of $644 million, growing 7% year-over-year. Digital revenues represented 84% of total segment revenue, up from 83% in the prior year. Professional Information business revenue grew 5%, driven by Risk and Compliance, which increased 11% to $102 million, supported by customer growth, product expansion and improved pricing. The reported growth rate reflects robust demand and the lapping of the Oxford Analytica and Dragonfly acquisitions last year. At Dow Jones Energy, revenues grew 4% to $76 million, with revenue growth impacted by the conflict in the Middle East and timing of new contracts. I want to emphasize what Robert said. The pipeline for new energy contracts is robust, and we expect improved growth in the first quarter. Customer retention remains very strong at approximately 90%. In the news business, circulation revenues grew 3%, while digital circulation increased 6%, an improvement from the third quarter. As mentioned at the investor briefing, we are actively working to optimize yield, including raising the full price rate for the Wall Street Journal digital subscription to $44.99 for new customers from $39.99, increasing the price of introductory offers and continuing the rollout of higher prices for tenured subscribers. While it's still very early, we continue to see benefits from these initiatives, delivering accelerated year-over-year growth in digital direct subscription ARPU and expect further improvements in fiscal 2027. Digital circulation represented 76% of total circulation revenue compared to 75% in the prior year. Digital-only subscriptions grew 9% year-over-year to nearly 6.3 million with sequential net adds of approximately 194,000 driven by the growth of enterprise new subscriptions, marking the highest sequential adds in over 2 years. Advertising revenue increased 5% to $109 million, driven by 10% growth in digital advertising, which more than offset a 6% decline in print advertising. Growth was led by strong performance in the finance and technology categories. Digital advertising represented 69% of total advertising revenue, up 4 percentage points from the prior year. It's worth pointing out that Dow Jones posted its first full year of ad growth in 4 years, and the start to fiscal 2027 has been encouraging. Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter grew a healthy 20% to $181 million, with margins increasing to 28.1%, up 310 basis points. Turning to Digital Real Estate. Segment revenues were $553 million, up 19% reported and 10% on an adjusted basis. Segment EBITDA was $222 million, up 46% reported and 33% on an adjusted basis, benefiting from strong profit contributions at both REA and at realtor.com. REA revenue grew 21% and 9% in constant currency. Growth was driven by the Australian residential business, led by price increases, growth in add-on products and strong listing growth. National new buy listing in the quarter grew 11%, with Sydney and Melbourne both up 8%. Residential yields this quarter grew 11%. REA announced the sale of its Indian operations for an increased ownership stake in Aurum last month. From a News Corp modeling perspective, in contrast to REA, we will not be treating REA India as a discontinued operation, given its lack of materiality relative to News Corp's total revenue and EBITDA. Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call for more details. Realtor.com continued to make very strong progress this quarter with revenues rising 13% to $167 million, and the team remains focused on scaling profitably. Realtor has now grown revenues 7 straight quarters and posted at least 10% growth for the past 3, an impressive trend given the still challenging housing environment. This quarter, revenue growth was driven by the continued strength across realtor.com's core real estate products, particularly Real Pro Select, its premium marketing solution for top-performing agents and teams. Strong demand for and increased penetration of Real Pro Select continued to drive higher yields, complemented by a strategic focus on higher-priced listings, which offer greater monetization potential. Additionally, our adjacencies comprising new homes, rentals and sellers continues to expand and represented 22% of revenue in the quarter. Lead volume rose 1% with average monthly users at 68 million, down 6%, which is reflective of both the broader market trends and the repositioning of consumer acquisitions to higher quality and higher-value leads. Realtor.com continues to grow market share, driven by innovations to enhance consumer experience and industry-leading news and insights content. According to Comscore data, realtor.com averaged 33% of total real estate portal visits in quarter 4, up from 31% in quarter 3, narrowing the gap to Zillow. This is nearly 7x the visit share of homes.com, almost triple that of Redfin. On product innovation, recent initiatives include the launch of conversational search powered by RealAssist, expanded data-driven hyperlocal news and insights and ongoing enhancement to the suite of agent tools. In addition, realtor.com+, the company's recently launched platform for MLSs, continues to gain traction with growing adoption across the industry and very positive feedback from MLS partners. One statistic I provided last quarter, which underscores yield improvement and a more diverse revenue base is revenue per existing home sales, which rose again by over 20% compared to quarter 4 fiscal 2022. This further strengthens our confidence in Realtor's revenue upside and earnings power once the market recovers. Turning to Book Publishing. HarperCollins posted another strong quarter. Revenues grew 15% to $566 million, outperforming recent industry trends. Segment EBITDA was $57 million, up 14% year-over-year and represents the highest fourth quarter segment EBITDA since fiscal 2018. Costs increased 15% this quarter, driven by higher sales volume from a stronger front list, mix of titles and demand for higher-priced deluxe editions. On an adjusted basis, revenue and EBITDA increased 13% and 12%, respectively. These robust results were driven by strong demand for new releases in general trade, U.K. and children's, combined with higher backlist sales. Digital revenues at HarperCollins grew 12%, including 16% in audiobooks, exiting with the highest quarterly growth rate this year, driven by strong growth at both Spotify and Audible. This quarter, the backlist contributed 60% of consumer revenues compared to 65% last year, driven by strength in the front list. At News Media, revenues increased 5% to $574 million, driven by currency favorability, while adjusted revenues were essentially flat and included a modest benefit from the World Cup. Segment EBITDA was $24 million, down $4 million year-over-year, reflecting disciplined reinvestment support for the launch of the California Post. Finally, free cash flow, defined as cash from operations less CapEx, improved in fiscal 2026 to $811 million, up 42% year-over-year and represented approximately 50% conversion from EBITDA. The strong growth was driven by increases in EBITDA and improvements to working capital, notably in the fourth quarter. Turning to our outlook. We continue to closely monitor events in the Middle East and the impact of the broader economy. That said, we are confident in the strength and resilience of our business. Some themes by segment. At Dow Jones, we expect continued strong revenue performance and anticipate B2B revenues, notably at Dow Jones Energy to improve in the first quarter. We will continue to support this growth with disciplined reinvestment and expect continued margin expansion. At Digital Real Estate Services, Australian residential new buy listings for July declined 2%. At Realtor, we hope to see continued revenue improvements, albeit the overall housing recovery could be impacted in the shorter term by rising mortgage rates. At Book Publishing, we expect to benefit from a strong frontlist program and an easier comparison versus the prior year. At News Media, we expect to incur some incremental costs compared to the prior year related to the continued rollout of the California Post, but should also see some benefit from new content licensing revenues. Also note, we faced a particularly difficult prior year comparison in the first quarter. On free cash flow, we continue to be focused on driving strong free cash flow. And as a reminder, our free cash flow generation tends to be second half weighted due to seasonality. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David Karnovsky with JPMorgan.

Robert, we've seen some reporting of publishers kind of broadly questioning their AI licensing agreements given the impacts on traffic. And if we look at you over the last 2 years, you have the OpenAI agreement, you added another with Meta. And so I'm curious what you've observed so far that's given you confidence that these deals aren't a negative from an engagement or traffic standpoint. And then if I can ask one for Lavanya. We saw the repurchase of REA shares in the quarter in addition to the News Corp shares. Maybe you could just speak to the strategy there.

David, we obviously can't discuss the precise details of confidential AI agreements, but let me emphasize that there are significant deals in the pipeline, and these deals will be a mix of the horizontal with the large digital or AI players and deals with sector-specific verticals where our content is crucial for a new AI-based business, for example. We are working closely with OpenAI and Meta as their products evolve. And each company has different needs. But these are not merely transactional arrangements. These are partnerships. We know how to create peerless content, and these companies know how interaction with content is evolving, as you suggest. We are creators, they are savvy distributors. Our inputs are crucial components of their outputs. And as for the litigation, it's far from over. But you can see from my earlier statement, we are focusing not just on companies that have scraped and stolen our content, but on their clients who knowingly or unknowingly have purchased stolen goods.

David, I'll take the second question that you had. I obviously cannot comment on REA's repurchases. But on our own repurchases, I mean, we did increase our repurchases by over 4x to $643 million. And our objective is to continue to stay in the market and to maximize TSR. We have a great balance sheet. We have great cash flow, and you can track the number of shares that we buy back on a daily basis.

Our next question comes from David Joyce with Seaport Research.

A lot of great growth here. I was wondering about the book publishing side of things. What would you attribute such strong physical and digital growth towards? Obviously, you do have some new titles coming out. Is there some secular trend that helps to explain it? And I was wondering what sort of data on usage that you're getting from your digital partners.

Well, David, I think the enduring trend is that we have a talented team at HarperCollins who are excellent at spotting new authors and in cultivating them and ensuring that the products that are produced and published are of the highest quality and the highest originality. And as you've seen, we've experienced particularly rapid audio book growth in recent years. And our partnership with Spotify is leading to an expansion of premium audio, which including to family members. And that itself has prompted Audible to bring much more experimentation to audiobooks. And it's fair to say, by the way, that AI will certainly provide a role in helping bring books to life through the use of vivid voices and the ability to generate a compelling audio experience that makes the IP that much more valuable. I mean for Q4 -- overall, digital revenues rose 12% and audio books expanded 16%. When you think about it, AI can really transform audiobooks as there will be so much more choice in the voices, the sound effects and other techniques and tools that will bring words to life. And don't forget how AI will enable much more cost-effective translations into multiple languages, both in text and audio.

Our next question comes from Ailsa Lei with UBS.

My question is with free cash flow ending on such a strong note. As you look into FY '27, can you help us think about where you're prioritizing incremental CapEx spend across the portfolio, please?

Sure, Al. Thank you for your question. Again, I just want to reiterate how pleased we are with the 42% increase in free cash flow for the year up to $811 million. I mean what drove it was really a combination of EBITDA growth, obviously, which has been very strong as well as working capital improvements. And we've seen those improvements on inventories and on days payable. We've only had a very modest increase in CapEx for the year, which was just about $19 million, and that went towards supporting both investments in technology, but also investments in upgrading our supply chain logistics for the Harper business, which is posting great growth and which will come with its own efficiencies. Looking forward into fiscal '27, I would just say that free cash flow improvement remains a key focus for us, and we do expect it to be a source of value expansion.