Travelzoo Q4 Earnings Decline, Yet Beat Estimates; Announces Share Buyback

(RTTNews) - Travelzoo Inc. (TZOO), an Internet media company, Thursday reported a slight decrease in earnings for the fourth quarter, reflecting nearly flat revenue and a higher tax rate. However, earnings per share beat analysts' estimates. Further, the company announced that the Board of directors have authorized a share repurchase of up to 500,000 of the company's outstanding shares. The share repuchase will be funded from available cash.

Earnings for the quarter were at $3.23 million, or $0.21 per share, compared with $3.76 million, or $0.24 per share, a year ago. On average, two analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters estimated the company's earnings to be $0.18 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The effective income tax rate for the 3-month period rose to 29 percent from 16 percent a year ago.

Revenue for the quarter was nearly flat at $37.47 million, compared with $37.03 million a year ago. Travelzoo's total un-duplicated subscribers numbered 23.3 million, a 4 percent increase over last year.

For the three months to December, capital expenditures increased to $1.9 million from $698,000 a year ago.