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2 2014 ANNUAL REPORT
Quite a lot happened in 2014.
/
We wrapped up selling the remaining assets of
The Washington Post newspaper.
/
We completed a transaction with Berkshire
Hathaway, trading our television station in Miami,
WPLG, to Berkshire along with cash and some
BRK stock in exchange for most of BRK’s stake
in our Company.
/
We announced that in 2015 we will spin-o Cable
ONE, making the cable company we’ve owned
for almost 30 years an independent company.
/
Toward the end of the year, Tim O’Shaughnessy,
the 33-year-old founder of LivingSocial, started
work as our president.
/
Just as this report was going to press, Kaplan
announced an agreement to sell its 38 U.S. col-
lege campuses (those are the vocational educa-
tion campuses) to ECA. We aren’t selling Kaplan
University and the campuses aliated with it, and
we certainly aren’t selling Kaplan. We’ll be building
around it. The sale requires regulatory approvals
and won’t be closed for months.
As a result of all these transactions (plus the sale
of The Washington Post and Newsweek in previous
years), we have changed quite a bit as a company.
/
We’re smaller. In revenues, 2014 ended up at
$3.5 billion. In 2010, revenues were $4.7 billion,
reflecting our ownership of The Washington Post
and higher revenues at Kaplan Higher Education.
In 2015, with Cable ONE spun-off, we’ll be
smaller still.
/
We have many fewer shares outstanding. At
the beginning of 2010, the number was about
9.3 million. At the end of 2014, it was around
5.8 million — 38% fewer shares outstanding in
five years.
/
We’re quite strong financially. On our balance
sheet we have almost $800 million in cash and
$194 million in stocks. The balance sheet will be
strengthened at the time of the Cable ONE
spin-o, when we receive a $400 million to
$500 million dividend from Cable ONE, roughly
equal to our tax basis in that company. Outstand-
ing debt is about $450 million, as it has been for
years. And this means:
/
We have a world of opportunity in front of us.
Our television business is one of the most prof-
itable (as well as highest quality) in its industry.
Education has a lot of growth opportunity in front
TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS
We have a world of opportunity in front
of us. Our television business is one of
the most profitable (as well as highest
quality) in its industry. Education has a
lot of growth opportunity in front of it,
now and over the years.