CEOCFO-Members Login
Become A Member!
|
This is a printer friendly page!
The depth and robustness
of their advanced courses differentiates Whitney Information Network from the competition,
offering 22 advanced courses that are unparalleled in the industry
Services
Education & Training Services
(OTCBB:RUSS)
Whitney Information Network, Inc.
1612 Cape Coral Parkway
Phone: 239-542-0643
Alfred R. Novas
Chief Financial Officer
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
Published – December 7, 2006
BIO:
Alfred R. Novas
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Novas joins the company from Novas and Associates where he led a strategic and
financial planning consulting practice since 2002. Prior to this, Mr. Novas held senior
financial and executive positions with Burger King Corporation, the Pillsbury Company,
Pizza Hut, Inc., and Childtime Learning Centers, Inc. Mr. Novas started his career with
Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte & Touche LLP), has a Bachelor degree in Business
Administration from the University of Notre Dame and a Master's in Accounting from St.
Thomas University.
Company Profile:
Whitney Information Network, Inc. is a leading provider of postsecondary education
and training courses in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Its courses
provide instruction in real estate investing, business strategies, stock market investment
techniques, cash management, asset protection, and other financially-oriented subjects.
The Company also develops and sells educational resource materials, as well as offers
various software products for the real estate, small business, and the stock trading
industries. Whitney Information Network was founded in 1992. The Company is headquartered
in Cape Coral, Florida, with offices in Salt Lake City, Utah, London England and Toronto, Canada.
We employ over 475 teammates worldwide and nearly 300 instructors.
CEOCFO: Mr. Novas, what attracted you to Whitney
Information Network?
Mr. Novas: “What attracted me to
Whitney Information Network were three primary areas; the first is that we compete in a
very fast growing and important sector in the economy, which is a post-secondary
educational area. The second is that Whitney Information is a leader within a very
important segment and that is the area of non-accredited, relevant and actual education
targeted to individuals and businesses. Thirdly, we have a terrific team of hardworking
well-intentioned individuals who are trying to make a difference in people’s
lives.”
CEOCFO:
Who is your typical customer?
Mr. Novas: “Our typical customer is an
individual or a husband and wife who are looking to better themselves in terms of their
financial wherewithal. That might be in the form of investing in real estate on the side
or even potentially changing their entire way of earning a living. It might be an
individual or a family wanting to improve the way they invest their discretionary income
in the financial markets, or improving their returns in their 401K. These individuals want
to make a difference in their lives and we are able to help them.”
CEOCFO:
What is it that you are actually providing, what type of instruction and how do people get
it?
Mr. Novas: “We provide a combination of
live instruction, online instruction as well as one-on-one mentoring to individuals in the
areas of real estate investing and financial markets investing.”
CEOCFO:
How do you reach your customer?
Mr. Novas: “Our primary method of
reaching customers is through direct response. It might be in the form of television
advertisement, direct mail, internet as well as through telemarketing.”
CEOCFO:
There is a lot of competition, why are people choosing you?
Mr. Novas: “Whitney Information has
been around for over 20 years. Our reputation for quality of education that we have in the
industry has been around for a long time. The fact that we have been doing this for 20
years, have expanded into financial markets, is a reflection of a solid education content,
the delivery, the quality of our instructors and the quality of our content. That allows
customers to realize that we are a company that has been here for a while, and that we
have a high-quality product. What differentiates us from a lot of the competition is the
depth and robustness of our advanced courses. We have 22 advanced courses that we offer
our students that are unparalleled in the industry. Our classes provide students with a
deep knowledge of the areas of education that they want to learn about and that is what
sets us apart.”
CEOCFO:
Will you give us an example of a few of the advanced courses?
Mr. Novas: “In the real estate space,
it could be information on foreclosure, on lease options, on land development; both
domestic and international. In the financial markets area it could be in the form of
options trading, advanced covered calls, asset protection, and advanced technical
analysis. We have 22 courses in total that really get in-depth into those specific areas
and provide very informative education.”
CEOCFO:
Do many of your customers go beyond the basics?
Mr. Novas: “Students, who want to
further develop their investment knowledge, enroll in our advanced classes offered by the
Wealth of Intelligence Academy. The
students who go through our three day basic are very pleased with that experience, and
sometimes decide to go into WIA.”
CEOCFO:
How is business?
Mr. Novas: “Business is great. The
first nine months of this year we were a +15.3% of year-over-year growth in terms of cash
received from courses and products sales. Our free cash flow for the first nine months was
+$23.2 million, which was up about +35% year-over-year. We are pleased with performance
thus far this year. In addition, last month we paid our very first cash dividend of $1.00
a share.”
CEOCFO:
Often education of this type has a bit of a negative connotation; how do you get away from
that and get people to see beyond that concept?
Mr. Novas: “I do not disagree that
there is a reputation for ‘get rich quick’ schemes. However, the fact that we
have been around for twenty-some odd years, have an extensive 22 courses in our advanced
course catalog and are continuing to grow at the numbers we are growing, would attest to
the fact that students are gaining a valuable experience lending time to one of our
courses.”
CEOCFO:
Do you feel that some of your good results could be tied to the burgeoning of the real
estate markets, and now that it is going in the other direction, do you need to do
anything different, or do you have concerns that it may affect your bottom line?
Mr. Novas: “Certainly, the fact that
you have negative headlines in real estate can provide a chilling effect for perspective
students. What we do in that situation, and in fact, we have always been saying to
students that our education concept is timeless. Whatever market conditions there may be,
our education is relevant and actionable. Nonetheless, there are certain things that we do
on the real estate side. For instance, over the last few weeks, we have just rolled out a
new brand called Focus on Foreclosure, which focuses on areas where students could benefit
from the potential market conditions that would create more foreclosures. We are nimble
and provide relevant education content based on market conditions. In addition, more than
half of our business is in the financial markets.”
CEOCFO:
Will you tell us more about the mentoring side of the business?
Mr. Novas: “Mentoring is one of our
more popular aspects. Say a student is in financial markets or real estate; we would have
one of our mentors or instructors, who will go out to the student’s location and work
one-on-one with the student to help them in their course of study. They would actually go
into a marketplace, and if they wanted to learn more about lease option, our mentors would
work with the student one-on-one and help them develop for example, an actionable plan to
execute a lease option initiative.”
CEOCFO:
Playing devil’s advocate, why don’t the mentors do it themselves?
Mr. Novas: “They do. These are
practitioners of what they teach. This is not their sole form of income; they are actually
both practitioners as well as instructors.”
CEOCFO:
What is ahead two or three years down the line for Whitney?
Mr. Novas: “I think Whitney continues
to develop the current verticals that they are in, which is the real estate education and
financial markets; education becoming more robust, providing even a further long-term
relationship with our students. We probably will add a third or fourth vertical to our
operating platform. We are in the process of evaluating various options, which we can go
ahead and add to our education delivery, leveraging off of the platform that we have
already developed.”
CEOCFO:
Let us talk about Russ Whitney, because obviously, he is the basis of this and how he fits
into the picture today.
Mr. Novas: “Russ Whitney is our
founder, Chairman and CEO, and is the visionary and leader of our Company. Russ is very
involved in direction of our enterprise and is very inspirational for all of us.”
CEOCFO:
In closing, why should potential investors be interested and what is often missed about
Whitney that people should know?
Mr. Novas: “For investors, there are
three major elements; one, we are a leader in a very attractive and highly fragmented
sector within the post-secondary education state. We have a scaleable platform to grow our
business as well as our operating margins. Lastly and very importantly for building value
as well as for a growth investor, we have a very strong and growing free cash flow
position, a solid balance sheet and compelling valuations.”
disclaimers
Any reproduction or further distribution of this
article without the express written consent of CEOCFOinterviews.com is prohibited.
|
