Operator: The next question comes from Ygal Arounian with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Ygal Arounian: Hey. Good morning, guys. First, two questions. First on Angi, we’ve been talking a lot about the optimizations, but maybe just to dial in specifically on the user side, because about a year ago we started talking about, Joey started talking about bringing back a greater focus on the integration. I guess, between ads and leads and services and optimization around the user. How much is left there? Can you give us a little update specifically on the user side? And what users are seeing today that might be better than they were seeing a year ago and how much is left? And then on the broader IC business, in the letter, you talked about being more offensive on capital allocation with your individual businesses being in a healthier position now.
And you also talked about in the letter the shift from goods to experiences and see that as kind of sustaining for longer around the MGM story. How does that fit into your M&A strategy and where you’re focused on finding the right capital allocation? Thanks.
Joey Levin: Sure. So, in terms of the ads and leads integration, it’s a really astute question and top of mind for us right now. You focused on the user side, which is where, as it relates to integration, we’ve actually made the most progress. And we have some big things rolling out shortly, actually along those lines in terms of, again, talking homeowner side. So, previously the algorithm for how a homeowner would match to historically ads pros and leads pros was complicated and I’d say somewhat illogical. And we now have improved the algorithm to the point which we’re getting ready to roll out now, which we’ve been testing for, I don’t know, six or nine months now, to better distribute and better match. And so a little bit of what we’ve been doing and seeing on the monetized transactions per SR is a result of what we’ve been testing there, so that a homeowner comes in and has the best chance of matching with the right pros, independent of whether they were historically ads pros or leads pros.
And that is a very big deal for driving the business. On the pro side, which you didn’t ask about, but is also important is I think there’s still work to do on the integration. So we still have multiple apps, we still have multiple back-end systems. We’re slowly but steadily migrating folks onto common systems, which will reduce our CapEx, reduce our — or improve our speed of execution. But we still have a lot of work to do on that side of the integration. And it was work that was never done historically that was sort of hiding in the background, and that we are now tackling and is really important to get done, and I think will yield real value in terms of our operating efficiency. In terms of capital allocation and this shift towards experiences, those do go hand-in-hand, that is an area of focus for us, for sure.
We believe this trend is a long-term trend, has been a long-term trend, and will be a trend for a while still to come. And we like the idea of businesses that benefit from that trend. So we’ve spent a lot of time recently looking in that area and looking deeply in that area, and we’ll continue to do so. Nothing imminent on that, but that is certainly a focus of our capital allocation. And I think if we look at last year, we bought back $165 million of IAC, we bought another $100 million of Turow, we bought $80 million worth of land. And those were, I think, easy transactions in each case, given the data at the time. Now, with steady cash flow and the businesses, I think, in a more stable place, we’re starting to look more opportunistically externally.
Again, nothing to, nothing immediately on the horizon, but I think we have the position to do that now. Thank you, operator, let’s have one last question.
Operator: Thank you. That question will come from Brent Thill with Jeffries. Please go ahead
Brent Thill: Joey, just a follow up question on capital allocation. I guess when you think about what you’re seeing in the private market and asset prices, I’m just curious. Many have asked, like, why not been more aggressive last year when we’ve had this downturn? Are you starting to see asset prices go back up? Are you seeing things maybe not as buoyant as most would expect, given the public market recovery. Just curious in terms of kind of what you’re seeing from your perspective.
Joey Levin: Yeah, Brent. We tried on a couple of things last year to be opportunistic that was more public market than private market. And while the valuations were down a lot to your point, the expected premiums were up a lot, and we couldn’t quite get there on those things. The private market, I think is still totally irrational. If you want the real view. I think that these businesses did a phenomenal job, very smartly raising enough capital to be able to wait out markets. And I think there’s still a lot of capital that has been raised to go after private opportunities, and that capital has a fuse on it to be deployed. And so the private markets need not be rational on those things. And so unless something is on the verge of running out of money, I don’t think anybody has to face reality on valuations, and therefore it is not, I think, a productive place for opportunities.
That is a very broad generalization, and certainly, there will be exceptions to that, if not many exceptions to that. But that’s been our experience so far in looking at opportunities there.
Brent Thill: Yeah. Maybe if you can just the time — one quick one on the emerging assets. Anything surprising you in the portfolio that we haven’t talked about as it relates to the smaller emerging stories in the portfolio?
Joey Levin: Well, I’m glad you raised it. We didn’t talk about Vivian at all, but Vivian is a good growing product and business. I mean, it’s kind of amazing what the business has done. Continues to grow, continues to grow very healthily in a market that is shrinking dramatically. So — not many people aren’t familiar with Vivian, so let me just explain what they do. They’re in matching nurses with jobs. They have focused primarily on the travel nurse category, which turned out to be a very big category, especially during the pandemic. Still is a very big category. But the growth in that category or that category shrank a lot post pandemic. Still bigger than what it was pre-pandemic but it shrank a lot. Throughout that whole period, Vivian has been growing.
And the reason Vivian has been growing is because they have an incredible concentration of the available nurses in the market using the platform, actively using the platform, building profiles on the platform, looking for jobs. And while there’s been some near term volatility in that market, with the pandemic and the need for nurses in hospitals and facilities, the supply demand imbalance is still enormous. Meaning there are many more facilities that need nurses than there are nurses available to do those jobs. And so Vivian, I think, is very well positioned there. Parth Bhakta, who runs that business, who founded and runs that business is a phenomenal entrepreneur and has done a wonderful job growing and building through that. And we think that business has a lot of potential.
Where it goes from here, we’ll see. But the execution so far has been really tremendous in a fun small business. Not moving needle for IAC. But since you asked about it, we do like that one in the emerging category.
Brent Thill: Thanks.
Joey Levin: Thank you.
Christopher Halpin: Thank you all for your support participation this morning. Operator, that it. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Joey Levin: Thank you.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
