One specific action we’d highlighted was to shutter an acquisition that was done 11 years ago called Craft Jack. That had its own small pro network that ran alongside the Angi network. We thought it’d been a nice add-on, but as Joey and Jeff and Rusty dug in there, we realized it was not profitable and essentially was a drag on the business. So we’ll see some incremental loss of revenue and most notably for our external metrics with respect to service professionals, you should expect a decline of about 5,000 pros there. But we expect to recapture many of the leads generated through Craft Jack previously directly, and view it as a margin accretive shutdown. As far as total revenue outlook, looking beyond next quarter, we want to allow Jeff to continue to develop his own view of the forward path of the business.
He talked about how the strategy continues, but the specific application of that, and what revenue opportunities, as well as cost opportunities he identifies. All-in though, we’d say this is in the confidence that we have in our, or in the context of the confidence, we have in our guidance of $120 million to $150 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year, and similar improving margins to the first quarter throughout. Thanks Cory, operator, next question.
Operator: The next question comes from Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer.
Jason Helfstein: Thanks, two questions. The first, given the stronger first quarter EBITDA at both Dotdash and Angi, why not raise a full year guide? Are you seeing anything in your outlook that is giving you pause? And then second, and this will be multiyear repetitive, you talked in the letter about being frustrated with the stock price, what’s the takeaway? Are you implying that you’ll lean into buybacks if the stock does not start to improve? And do you think about like the DDMs, they get a source of capital or leverage if you need it? Thanks, and welcome back Jeff.
Joey Levin: Thank you. Chris, you want to do the first one and I’ll do the second?
Christopher Halpin : Perfect, on full year guidance, on Dotdash, we feel confident in the momentum and outlook for the business. Between the revenue growth, we are seeing the OpenAI partnership and visibility on margins. Given the seasonality of the business, however, the full year is always heavily weighted toward the second half. So we thought it prudent at this point to get deeper into the year before revising guidance. That’s why we’re reaffirming our $280 million to $300 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year while making targeted investments in areas like content, D/Cipher, and performance marketing. But we would say we are, we feel confident about being in the higher end of that range and we’ll continue to update the market as the year progresses based on what we’re seeing.
On Angi, we produce strong profitability in the first quarter, despite declining revenues. To us, that demonstrates that many of the revenues that we’ve removed from the business truly produced limited profitability and value. There’s still more work to do in improving both the consumer and professional experience. That’s a key priority. So we want to continue to main flexibility to build the best business for the future. We’d say we feel good about $30 plus million, a quarter of adjusted EBITDA for the remainder of the year. So we’re keeping the guidance at $120 million to $150 million. And then do you want to take?
Joey Levin: Yes, so on buybacks, Jason, maybe a few things. One, let’s talk about kind of the evolution of thinking about buybacks and what goes into that. And certainly buybacks are on the table, I guess would be the shortest answer to your question. But the first step was really getting our operations in order and making sure we have a very healthy business fitness. I think we’ve accomplished that. There’re still other things we want to accomplish along those lines. I think we made real progress there. Second thing is having excess cash and generating incremental cash. We feel very good about where we are there. Obviously, a prerequisite which you highlighted already is having an attractive valuation and believing we’ll get a good return on capital.
And I think that box is certainly checked. There’s also of course, making sure we have no restrictions on our ability to buy back shares, which happens periodically. And then maybe harder one is the opportunity cost to our cash, which is we’re always evaluating a lot of things. We’re evaluating new M&A for our businesses, new M&A outside of our businesses. I think the good news right now is we have the ability to afford both. And that is to weave in your next question, a combination of the cash in our balance sheet, the incremental cash we’re generating. And we do have a very valuable important stake in MGM. We have no intention of getting out of that stake. But if you want to think about our overall liquidity and sources of liquidity, that is a liquid public currency.
And so that contributes to the overall liquidity picture of IAC. Again, not to imply anything. We’re very happy with MGM, how MGM is doing, and the fact that we now own over 20% of MGM, thanks to MGM being very aggressive on stock buybacks, buying back more than a third of the company. So there’s a lot that goes in there. But the short answer to your question, Jason, is yes, that’s considering buybacks as the antidote to what I raised and what you highlighted is absolutely on the table.
Operator: The next question comes from Justin Patterson with KeyBanc.
Justin Patterson: Great. Thank you very much. I actually wanted to build off of Jason’s last question. Joey, now that you’re a full-time IAC CEO, no longer wearing two CEO hats, I would love to hear about just how you’re thinking about the evolution of IAC here. I know in the past you talked about looking at marketplaces as your preference for M&A. We’ve obviously seen a lot of changes within the internet landscape with Gen AI. So I would love to hear more about just how you’re spending your time these days and how you’re thinking about the future of IAC. Thank you.
Joey Levin: Yes, thanks, Justin. It’s really important question. So certainly on the spending time part of your question, very much on capital allocation, both in our existing opportunities and new opportunities. And AI is an area where we continue to try to learn and find opportunities. I think that’s probably less likely from an M&A perspective. I think that while there are plenty of opportunities out there, I think that the sort of pure play AI things are currently priced to perfection, which is a hard place to deploy capital. But many businesses, including our own, as you just saw with that Dotdash Meredith are in a position to benefit from AI. And that’s certainly a factor as we think about new opportunities for IAC. I wouldn’t pick a particular sector right now.
