Solera Holdings, Inc. Revises Fiscal Year 2014 Guidance to Reflect Completion of the Service Repair Solutions, Inc. Joint Venture and Refinancing Transactions

WESTLAKE, Texas, Dec. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Solera Holdings, Inc. ("Solera", "we" or "our") (NYSE: SLH), a leading global provider of software and services to the automobile insurance claims processing and decision support industries, today announced that it is updating its fiscal year 2014 guidance previously provided on November 6, 2013 to reflect the completion in November 2013 of the (i) Service Repair Solutions, Inc. joint venture, (ii) $850 million bond offering and (iii) redemption of the senior notes due in 2018 in the principal amount of $850 million (the "2018 Notes").  The updated guidance is as follows:

The current fiscal year 2014 outlook above assumes as of the date hereof, (i) constant currency exchange rates from those currently prevailing, (ii) no acquisitions of businesses, (iii) no repurchases of our common stock and (iv) an assumed 26% income tax rate to calculate Adjusted Net Income.

About Solera

Solera is a leading global provider of software and services to the automobile insurance claims processing and decision support industries. Solera is active in over 65 countries across six continents. The Solera companies include Audatex in the United States, Canada, and in more than 45 additional countries, Informex in Belgium and Greece, Sidexa in France, ABZ and Market Scan in the Netherlands, HPI in the United Kingdom, Hollander serving the North American recycling market, AUTOonline providing salvage disposition in a number of European and Latin American countries, IMS providing medical review services, and Explore providing data and analytics to United States property and casualty insurers. For more information, please refer to Solera's website at http://www.solerainc.com.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use a number of non-GAAP financial measures that are not intended to be used in lieu of GAAP presentations, but are provided because management believes that they provide additional information with respect to the performance of our fundamental business activities and are also frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties to facilitate the evaluation of our business on a comparable basis to other companies. The three primary non-GAAP financial measures that we use are Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share. We believe that Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share are useful to investors in providing information regarding our operating results. We rely on Adjusted EBITDA as a primary measure to review and assess the operating performance of our company and our management team in connection with our executive compensation and bonus plans. Adjusted EBITDA also allows us to compare our current operating results with corresponding prior periods as well as to the operating results of other companies in our industry. We present Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share because we believe both of these measures provide useful information regarding our operating results in addition to our GAAP measures. We believe that Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share provide investors with valuable insight into our profitability exclusive of unusual adjustments, and provide further insight into the cash impact resulting from the different treatments of goodwill for financial reporting and tax purposes.

Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share have limitations as analytical tools, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for net income, net income per share and other consolidated income statement data prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Because of these limitations, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share should not be considered as a replacement for net income. We compensate for these limitations by relying primarily on our GAAP results and using Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share as supplemental information.

Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure that represents GAAP net income attributable to Solera Holdings, Inc., excluding (i) interest expense, (ii) provision for income taxes, (iii) depreciation and amortization, (iv) stock-based compensation expense, (v) restructuring charges, asset impairments, and other costs associated with exit and disposal activities, (vi) other (income) expense, net, (vii) litigation related expenses, and (viii) acquisition and related costs. Acquisition and related costs include legal and professional fees and other transaction costs associated with completed and contemplated business combinations and asset acquisitions, costs associated with integrating acquired businesses, including costs incurred to eliminate workforce redundancies and for product rebranding, and other charges incurred as a direct result of our acquisition efforts. These other charges include changes to the fair value of contingent purchase consideration, acquired assets and assumed liabilities subsequent to the completion of the purchase price allocation, purchase price that is deemed to be compensatory in nature, incentive compensation arrangements with continuing employees of acquired companies and gains and losses resulting from the settlement of a pre-existing contractual relationship with an acquiree. Acquisition and related costs also include the legal and other professional fees associated with the Federal Trade Commission's investigation of our acquisition of Actual Systems and the divestiture of Actual Systems' U.S. and Canadian businesses.

Adjusted Net Income is a non-GAAP financial measure that represents GAAP net income attributable to Solera Holdings, Inc., excluding (i) provision for income taxes, (ii) amortization of acquired intangible assets, (iii) stock-based compensation expense, (iv) restructuring charges, asset impairments, and other costs associated with exit and disposal activities, (v) other (income) expense, net excluding interest income, (vi) litigation related expenses, and (vii) acquisition and related costs. From this amount, we subtract an assumed provision for income taxes to arrive at Adjusted Net Income. Our current fiscal year 2014 outlook assumes a 26% income tax rate as an approximation of our long-term effective corporate income tax rate, which includes certain benefits from net operating loss carryforwards, tax credits, tax deductible goodwill and amortization, and certain holding companies in low tax-rate jurisdictions.

Adjusted Net Income per diluted common share is a non-GAAP financial measure that represents Adjusted Net Income (as defined above) divided by the number of diluted shares outstanding for the period used in the calculation of GAAP net income attributable to Solera's per diluted common share.

We have not included a quantitative reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to our most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP as such GAAP financial measures are not available without unreasonable efforts.

Cautions about Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about: our expectations regarding our prospects and business outlook for fiscal year 2014; our expectations and beliefs regarding changes in foreign currency exchange rates; and statements about acquisitions, common stock repurchases, our effective tax rate and other historical results or performance that may suggest trends for our business. These statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and assumptions and are subject to many risks, uncertainties and unknown future events that could cause actual results to differ materially. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in this press release due to the risks and uncertainties inherent in our business, including, without limitation: our reliance on a limited number of customers for a substantial portion of our revenues; unpredictability and volatility of our operating results, which include the volatility associated with foreign currency exchange risks, our sales cycle, seasonality, global economic conditions, acquisitions and other factors; risks associated with and possible negative consequences of acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures and similar transactions, including regulatory matters and our ability to successfully integrate our acquired businesses; failure to realize the expected benefits from our Service Repair Solutions, Inc. joint venture; effects of competition on our software and service pricing and our business; time and expenses associated with customers switching from competitive software and services to our software and services; rapid technology changes in our industry; risks associated with operating in multiple countries; risks associated with a diversified business; effects of changes in or violations by us or our customers of government regulations; use of cash to service our debt and effects on our business of restrictive covenants in our bond indentures; our ability to obtain additional financing as necessary to support our business or operations, including Mission 2020 and the put rights or call right relating to our Service Repair Solutions, Inc. joint venture; our reliance on third-party information for our software and services; costs and possible future losses or impairments relating to our acquisitions; the financial impact of future significant restructuring and severance charges; the impact of changes in our tax provision (benefit), effective tax rate or ability to fully utilize our tax assets; our ability to pay dividends or repurchase shares in future periods; our dependence on a limited number of key personnel; effects of system failures or security breaches on our business and reputation; and any material adverse impact of current or future litigation on our results or business, including litigation with Mitchell International. For a discussion of these and other factors that could impact our business, operations or financial results and cause our results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the Quarter Ended September 30, 2013. We are under no obligation to (and specifically disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Solera Holdings, Inc.