Aspen Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASPU) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Eric Martinuzzi: Okay. And then last question for me, what is it that’s seeming to take forever on the AR financing?

Michael Mathews: Well, I don’t think it’s €“ I would disagree that it’s taken forever. We tried to get a facility back in the spring this year. And there is a fairly significant amount of regulatory noise, I think that all the shareholders are aware of. And so we got a couple of term sheets that we didn’t like. So we declined. And we made the decision to hire a banker that specifically focuses only on helping companies find debt solutions, which is Lampert Capital. So we’re making great progress. And again, we have every expectation that we will close it in the next couple of months.

Eric Martinuzzi: Okay. Well, thanks for taking my question and good luck.

Michael Mathews: Thanks, Eric.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Raj Sharma with B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Raj Sharma: Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. Good results. I wanted to follow-up on the AR financing. It seems like the marketing €“ you’ve said marketing is in maintenance mode. But I think you also €“ you’ve also just said that you’re waiting for €“ you’re waiting for the AR financing to kind of ramp the marketing spend backup and so that you can get year-on-year improvements in the starts. Can you kind of give us an indication of what that level would be? And are you going to take it right back up to $4.5 million or half of that or €“ and what does growth mean, 5% starts growth you are aiming for kind of just a little bit? Because it seems to be dependent upon €“ your marketing budget seems to be dependent €“ significantly dependent on AR financing. More color on that would be great?

Michael Mathews: Yes. Good afternoon, Raj. It’s Mike. Our plan right now is for the upcoming fiscal year, starting May 1. What we’d like to do, and Matt kind of mentioned this in his comments, we’d like to implement a business plan that we maintain a kind of a breakeven adjusted EBITDA type of a level as we regrow the company. And in order to do that, we’ve methodically analyzed that the right spend rate is kind of in the vicinity of about $7 million to $8 million per annum. So call it back of the envelope, a couple of million dollars a quarter. So that’s our current plan for the upcoming fiscal year as to €“ once Q1 rolls around in the spring, we’re looking to go back to approximately a couple of million dollars a quarter. Hope that helps.

Raj Sharma: Right. So, that would be the fourth quarter, the start of the fourth quarter, you think

Michael Mathews: Yes, the facility €“ yes, correct. The facility closes in January, we would commence in the fourth quarter. That’s correct.

Raj Sharma: And what kind of an enrollment growth you think we could kind of plan for or model the $2 million a year spend €“ quarter spend?

Michael Mathews: Well, what you have to realize is last year, we were generating on a quarterly basis for pre-licensure anywhere between 300 and 500 enrollments a quarter. So, when you start to do the year-over-year comparables, you have to kind of take that out of the analysis or out of the equation. So, as we enter next year, there is no reason why in the second half of the fiscal year that we can’t be increasing our enrollments on a year-over-year comparative, right. So, in Q3 last year, we did about 1,800 enrollments, and then in Q4, which is a softer quarter, we did about 1,500 enrollments. As we get €“ if we look at that comparative a year from now, we should be able to hit that or exceed those numbers.