Cengage Learning Holdings II Inc
OTC:CNGO
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Cengage Learning Holdings II Inc
During the fiscal 2021 third quarter investor update, the leadership team at Cengage Group shared important insights into the company's business segments and projected financial health. The call offered a narrative of a company at an important growth juncture, buoyed by the consistent performance of its diverse business units.
The strength of Cengage's portfolio was evident in the growth of all business units. Cengage Academic saw a nominal increase, but the noteworthy advances came from Cengage Work and Cengage Select, up by 19% and 7% respectively, indicating a successful pivot towards digital strategies in education. The U.S. higher education business, in particular, reached an inflection point, suggesting a potential return to growth, largely driven by the adoption of digital platforms.
Looking at the updated guidance for fiscal '24, Cengage Group anticipates continued robust growth. Adjusted cash revenue is expected to range between $1.52 billion to $1.53 billion. The growth is predicted to be supported by a mix of low and strong single-digit increases across its academic and select segments, and an impressive 20% growth in Cengage Work. Adjusted cash EBITDA is estimated to fall between $455 million and $460 million, exceeding the pace of revenue growth with a projected margin of around 30%. The company's focus on economies of scale and cost-efficiency is central to this financial narrative.
Looking beyond fiscal '25, Cengage appears confident in maintaining strong top-line growth. This optimism is underpinned by the company's resilience and previous years' successful strategies. The implementation of a new operating model, targeting an additional $90 million to $100 million in cost efficiencies, is expected to further stimulate EBITDA growth and support ongoing margin expansion. The management's strategic financial foresight also involves prudent deleveraging and leveraging financial flexibility for potential M&A and organic investment opportunities.
Amid evolving educational policies and the potential shifts in Department of Education stipulations, Cengage Group maintains a stance of preparedness rather than concern. The discussion indicated an expectation that inclusive access models would remain advantageous to students and institutions. Furthermore, the company is proactive in engaging with policy processes and believes its digital delivery models will continue to find favor among students, regardless of regulatory outcomes.
Cengage Group concluded the earnings call with a stable outlook, maintaining guidance that speaks to a consistent trajectory of expansion and growth. While the nuances of educational industry trends and potential policy impacts present variables to model on a quarterly basis, the overarching financial health of the company demonstrates resilience and adaptability. Investors can anticipate further detail in the full year financial results at the end of the fiscal year.
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Greetings. Welcome to the Cengage Group Fiscal 2024 Third Quarter Ended December 31, 2023 Investor Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Richard Veith, Treasurer at Cengage. You may begin.
Good morning, and welcome to Cengage Group's Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Investor Update. Joining me on the call are Michael Hensen, Chief Executive Officer; and Bob Munro, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of the slide presentation for today's call has been posted to the company's website at cengagegroup.com investors. The following discussion contains forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as believe, expect, may, will, estimate, likely and similar words and are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance and relate to future results and events, and they are based on Cengage Group's current expectations and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Many factors could cause our actual results and financial conditions to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. You should consider such factors, many of which are subject to the risks and uncertainties discussed in the slide presentation, which accompanies this call and in the Risk Factors section of our fiscal 2023 annual report for the year ended March 31, 2023, as may be updated by our quarterly reports for fiscal year 2024. Any forward-looking statement made in this presentation is based on currently available information. The company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. On today's call and on our slide presentation, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions and the rationale for using these measures and reconciliations of each to its most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are provided in the appendix to the slide presentation. I'll now turn the call over to Michael for an update on the business, followed by Bob, who will take you through the third quarter details before we open the call up for questions. Michael?
Thank you, Richard. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fiscal year 2024 third quarter update. I am pleased to share that our business continues to perform well, evidenced by our strong financial results through the third quarter. Based on these results and the performance in Q4 to date, we are improving our financial guidance for the full year.
Looking beyond fiscal '24, we are well advanced with the implementation of a new operating model. Focused on simplification and improved profitability, we expect to drive incremental cost savings of $90 million to $100 million over the next 2 years. We will significantly accelerate our adjusted cash EBITDA growth and margin expansion. More on this in a few moments. We are on track to deliver a third consecutive year of mid-single-digit growth in adjusted cash revenues. We expect full year revenues to be in the range of $1.52 billion to $1.53 billion, with adjusted cash EBITDA growth expected to meaningfully accelerate through the fourth quarter to land in the range of $455 million to $460 million. Our performance is a testament to the health of our portfolio of businesses. Adjusted cash revenues are up 4% year-to-date with all business units, academic work and select contributing to growth. There are a couple of notable highlights. In Cengage Academic, our U.S. higher education business is reaching an inflection point returning to growth. Adjusted cash revenues are up 2% on a trailing 12-month basis. Our multiyear effort to reshape the U.S. higher air business is paying off through leading commercial innovation, including Cengage Unlimited and institutional access models and investing in best-in-class customer service and product performance, the U.S. higher ed business is now well over 80% digital. Digital sales growth continues to outweigh the drag of an ever smaller and declining residual print base. In Cengage Work, we are also reaching an important inflection point in fiscal 2024. As the business comes to the end of a period of higher fixed investments, Cengage Work has transitioned firmly into profitability. On a trailing 12-month basis, revenues are ahead over 20%, and the business generated $6 million in adjusted cash EBITDA. With continued strong demand in the job verticals we serve, healthy unit economics and lower customer acquisition costs, we expect the business to continue to progressively expand margin as it continues to grow. The positive EBITDA trajectory in Cengage Work, combined with continued sales momentum in U.S. higher education through the spring season are key to drivers of the expected acceleration in adjusted cash EBITDA growth to 8% to 9% for the full year from 6% year-to-date. Through our new operating model, we have clearly defined a path to significantly improve profitability and operating leverage. We will do this by scaling key shared functions across our portfolio and simplifying our business processes. We are already well advanced in our plans to consolidate and rightsize product development and customer support functions. With this new model, we are rationalizing our technology landscape and optimizing our resourcing model and global supply chain. We have high conviction in our ability to deliver these plans, which leverage proven execution capabilities, established offshore and outsourced resource models and the deep expertise of our sponsor group. Of the $90 million to $100 million expected incremental savings to be generated through this initiative over the next 2 years, around EUR 60 million is expected to be realized in fiscal '25 and $30 million to $40 million in fiscal '26. In total, the targeted cost savings represent 600 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion on a pro forma basis. Cengage Group will be a simpler and more profitable company with significantly enhanced financial flexibility to pursue new growth opportunities to further drive shareholder value. Aligned with the transformation of our operating model, we have made 2 important additions to the Senate group executive team. First, to champion the implementation of our new operating model with a focus on continuous improvement and cost efficiency, we have added an EVP Global Operations and Chief Transformation Officer. Second, we added a Chief Digital Officer, who is responsible for product technology and innovation, including leveraging generative AI to enhance our products and improve teaching and learning experiences. As we conclude this third quarter, I want to recognize again that this strong performance is the result of the leadership and dedication of all of our employees who continue to focus on providing our customers with quality products and industry-leading service. We recognize the importance of our distinctive culture and take pride in once again earning a place on Glassdoor's Best Places to Work list for the second year in a row. Now I will hand the call over to Bob Munroe, our Chief Financial Officer, for a more detailed review of our financial performance. Bob, over to you.
Good morning, and thank you, Michael. Starting with the financial highlights and the overall Cengage Group performance. Our portfolio of businesses has continued to perform well, maintaining Cengage Group's solid growth trajectory through the first 9 months of the year. Year-to-date adjusted cash revenues were up 4% to $1.12 billion, driven by Cengage Work and English Language Teaching, both of which grew by around 20%. Fiscal '24 performance is further underpinned by the return to modest growth of our largest business, U.S. higher education. Our successful digital strategy both underpins the U.S. higher education results and is an overarching driver of Cengage's performance. Digital net sales were up 8% to $1.1 billion on a trailing 12-month basis and represent 74% of total net sales. For the first 9 months, adjusted cash EBITDA increased 6% to $327 million, outpacing revenue growth. This reflects strong revenue flow-through with Cengage's overall gross margin standing at 79% and our continued focus on driving cost efficiency whilst funding investment in high-growth areas of the business, most notably Cengage Work and English Language Teaching. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted cash EBITDA is $439 million, 11% ahead of the prior period and tracking to our improved expectations for the full year of adjusted cash EBITDA in the range of $455 million to $460 million. Over the fourth quarter, we expect the $15 million to $20 million improvement in full year adjusted cash EBITDA to be driven by the continued momentum in U.S. higher ed through the spring season. Cengage Work maintaining its impetus through its largest sales quarter in the year and the revenue trajectory in secondary research and English language teaching, all of which are supported by solid sales pipelines. As we've become a predominantly digital business over the past 5-plus years, prepublication costs have declined and are increasingly integrated with digital product development. As a result, across prepublication costs and CapEx, we believe we have reached a reasonably stable level of annual spend, which together amounts to less than 10% of annual revenues. In this context, we believe adjusted cash EBITDA is an increasingly important metric and relevant in the comparative assessment of performance against external benchmarks. Further to Michael's comments, as the business moves into fiscal '25 and beyond, we expect the incremental $90 million to $100 million in cost savings to meaningfully accelerate adjusted cash EBITDA growth and margin expansion, and we are significantly advanced in our execution of plans to deliver these savings. Turning to our performance across our business segments. Our year-to-date performance underlines the strength of our portfolio, with all business units contributing to growth. Cengage Academic adjusted cash revenues were up 1% to $670 million, with Cengage Work up 19% to $90 million and Cengage Select up 7% to $341 million. In Cengage academic, with a successful fall season, the U.S. higher education business is reaching an inflection point and return to growth driven by our digital strategy. Year-to-date, adjusted cash revenue was $409 million, up 1%. Looking across a full academic year to better illustrate the underlying momentum in the business. On a trailing 12-month basis, U.S. Higher Ed adjusted cash revenue growth is a notch higher, up 2% over the prior year to $600 million. This is underpinned by sustained digital growth, which is outweighing declines in an ever-decreasing print base.
On a trailing 12-month basis, digital net sales were $528 million, up 7%, underpinned by very strong growth in institutional sales. Institutional revenues were $253 million, up 26% and now comprise 42% of total U.S. higher education revenues improving the stability and predictability of the business. With January behind us, we are substantially through the spring season, where we are seeing continuing positive sales momentum, underscoring our expectation that this return to growth will be sustainable. In international higher ed, year-to-date adjusted cash revenue was $81 million, 8% below the prior period. This is principally driven by strategic pricing and channel actions taken in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region to mitigate reimportation into the U.S. These actions represent a one-time rebasing of the business in those markets in fiscal '24. As a consequence of this, we believe there has been some sales uplift in the U.S. with some benefit to profit margins. For the full year fiscal '24, we expect the drag of these onetime strategic actions to largely persist. The secondary business performed well in the first 9 months with adjusted cash revenues up 5% to $180 million. As fully expected and covered in our last update, year-over-year growth has moderated through the third quarter. This reflects the normalization of significant sales timing effects, which temporarily benefited the first half growth and reversed in the third quarter. With the annual sales cycle for secondary now around 90% complete and a strong back-to-school season in the bag, we expect the secondary business to maintain its robust growth momentum through the full fiscal year. The year-to-date performance and sustained growth trajectory stand in stark contrast to a number of other market participants in K-12. This reflects our intentional withdrawal from K5 basal adoption segments and our strategic focus on core middle and high school programs and advanced placement and career and technical education. In these segments, we believe demand is more stable and predictable through the cycle and our products differentiated through leveraging the strength of our U.S. higher education franchises and our exclusive educational partnership with the National Geographic Society. Cengage Work maintained very strong momentum through the third quarter with year-to-date adjusted cash revenues of 19% to $90 million. Work is on track for a strong fourth quarter and another successful year both significantly advancing our education per employment strategy and delivering strong financial results with full year growth expected to be approaching 20%. In Ed2Go, year-to-date sales increased 25% to $57 million, driven by higher enrollment growth in advanced career training courses. These represent over 80% of our net sales, reflecting our focus on job verticals where there are high structural employment gaps and certification requirements, most notably Allied Health, where we have a leading position. Beyond the strong market fundamentals, growth in enrollment is driven by ongoing expansion of B2B channels, introduction of new commercial models and established programs to extend a primary position in the academic channel, where we continue to successfully add new partners and more deeply integrate with them. With its strategic focus on cybersecurity, Infosec is similarly focused on a job vertical with high structural employment gaps and we believe, strong long-term demand fundamentals. Net sales grew 10% in the first 9 months of fiscal '24 to $32 million, reflecting double-digit growth in security awareness software moderated by lower growth in bootcamps. Bootcomp revenues were held back by weaker spending across our U.S. government customers, which we believe to be temporary. We expect Infosec to sustain double-digit sales growth for the full year, a meaningful improvement over fiscal '23 and then to further accelerate going forward, underpinned by go-to-market and product initiatives. Cengage Work reached a key inflection point in fiscal '24, moving firmly into profitability with adjusted cash EBITDA of $4 million in the 9 months to the end of December. The fourth quarter is typically the largest sales quarter for work, representing around 30% of annual sales. Commensurate with this, we expect adjusted cash EBITDA to meaningfully improve over the final quarter. Beyond this, the moderation of the investment cycle, scaling of the business and strong unit economics are expected to drive progressive margin expansion going forward. In Cengage Select, adjusted cash revenues grew 7% for the first 9 months. English language teaching is having an excellent year and has maintained its high momentum through the third quarter. Year-to-date, adjusted cash revenues were up 21% over the prior year to $120 million. Our new digital platform, Spark, is successfully driving digital adoption with digital net sales up 19% and digital users up over 30%. This revenue performance reflects sustained strong progress in international markets and over 50% growth in U.S. K-12. In U.S. K-12, with highly differentiated products, leveraging our exclusive long-term partnership with National Geographic Society and our new digital platform, we have established a leading position, meeting the learning needs of non-native English language speakers.
Year-to-date adjusted cash EBITDA in English Language Teaching was $45 million, up 37% with healthy margin expansion, reflecting the benefits of improved product and market mix, increased digital penetration and effective scaling. Year-to-date growth moderated over Q3 as we expected. The sales timing effects, which benefited the first half reversed with year-to-date growth now only modestly ahead of our strong double-digit growth expectations for the full year. In research, year-to-date adjusted cash revenues were $161 million, marginally behind the prior year, with the growth performance held back by temporary sales timing effects, which are expected to reverse in the fourth quarter. For the full year, we expect the business to return to modest growth, underpinned by strong subscription renewals, which are running at 95% through the first 9 months and a solid sales pipeline. In the Other segment, year-to-date adjusted cash revenues were $60 million, up 8%, with [indiscernible] on track to deliver another year of expected good growth. For the full year, growth in the Other segment is expected to moderate, driven by the Australia K-12 business. The favorable year-to-date export sales timing effects, which masked ongoing domestic market weakness are expected to reverse in Q4. Turning to cash flow. Year-to-date unlevered free cash flow or operating cash flow was $224 million, up 30% from $172 million in the same period a year ago. This strong performance reflects the fundamental highly cash-generative nature of the business, amplified by sustainable improvements in working capital efficiency from an ongoing optimization program launched in the second quarter and the normalization of prior year supply chain pressures. Over the fourth quarter, we expect working capital to continue to improve and to be broadly neutral for the full year, with an expectation that benefits from the optimization program and normalization offset the impact of our ongoing investments in global business systems. For fiscal '24, we are forecasting unlevered free cash flow of between $340 million and $350 million, significantly ahead of the $252 million achieved last year. At the 31st of March 2023, Cengage held $975 million of U.S. federal and over $1.1 billion of state net operating losses. While Cengage started generating U.S. taxable income in fiscal '23, these accumulated losses are expected to shield Cengage from significant increases in U.S. tax payments over the medium term. As Michael addressed earlier, we are actively driving the execution of our new operating model over the fourth quarter. We expect to be significantly advanced in its implementation by the end of the year, underpinning the approximately $60 million of incremental cost savings expected in fiscal '25. These plans are expected to result in between 50% and 60% of an estimated $80 million in associated onetime costs to be paid in cash by the end of the year. As a result, we estimate full year onetime cash outflows of roughly $60 million compared to $33 million year-to-date. With the expected growth in unlevered free cash flow, more than offsetting estimated tax, interest and onetime outflows, as we close out this fiscal year, we expect to further strengthen our cash and liquidity position, which is set out on the next slide. Over the past several years, we have been sharply focused on deleveraging our balance sheet. The $530 million Apollo-led preferred equity issue in the first quarter of this year enabled a step change in Cengage's capital structure and reduction in leverage, which came on top of the steady progress made through the combination of profit growth and cash generation. Net leverage on an adjusted cash EBITDA basis significantly decreased to 3x, which is 1.8 turns lower than a year ago. On top of $500 million of proceeds from the preferred equity issue, we have deployed approximately $150 million of excess cash over the past 2 years to fully redeem senior notes, which was completed in October and to also meet amortization payments on the term loan, whilst maintaining a strong liquidity position. We ended the first 9 months with total cash of $266 million and total liquidity of $371 million. Under the terms of the preferred equity issue, the company can elect to meet dividend obligations are payable at 10% quarterly in arrears in cash or payment in kind. For the quarters ending September and December of 2023, the company elected to pay in kind the approximately 13 million quarterly dividends, after paying the 6 million June partial period in cash. Future dividend payments will continue to be assessed in the context of our strategy and liquidity requirements. To close, we are updating our full year guidance for fiscal '24 on the back of the continued strong progress across our portfolio. Cengage Group is on track to deliver a third consecutive year of solid growth in adjusted cash revenue, which we expect to land in the range of $1.52 billion to $1.53 billion. We expect this growth to be supported by low single-digit growth in Cengage Academic, strong single-digit growth in Cengage Select and growth in Cengage Work approaching 20%. Adjusted cash EBITDA is projected to fall in the range of $455 million to $460 million, meaningfully outpacing revenue growth with margin expanding to approximately 30%. This reflects high flow-through of revenues to gross margin, given the inherently strong unit economics of our business and the result of continued focus on driving scale and efficiencies across our cost base. Consistent with this, we expect adjusted cash ELPP to be in the range of $375 million to $380 million for the fiscal year. Looking ahead to fiscal '25 and beyond, we believe we are well positioned to maintain robust top line growth, underpinned by the inherent resilience of our business and proven go-to-market strategies and execution capabilities, which have driven our growth over the last 3 years. We are well advanced with the implementation of the new Cengage operating model and expect the targeted $90 million to $100 million incremental cost efficiencies to meaningfully accelerate EBITDA growth and margin expansion. The combination of expected strong EBITDA growth and cash generation will enable us to continue to deleverage the business whilst providing enhanced financial flexibility for M&A and organic investment opportunities to further drive the growth of the business and value creation for equity holders. I will now pass back to the operator for questions.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question for today is coming from Nick Dempsey at Barclays.
Just one question. I was wondering if you could elaborate after seeing a return to growth in calendar Q4. I wonder if you could talk about the adoption share situation that saw through that important fall season and the adoption share situation you've been seeing into the spring season?
Bob, do you want to take that?
Sure. Yes, so as you know, we look at MPI data. And through December, MPI data shows as one reference point that we have continued to gain ground relatively modestly against the 5 other major publishers who make up that data set. Based on our own assessment of market research, which we conduct every year in terms of actual adoption wins, again, we believe we have modestly gained adoption share from our competitors. And I think overall, importantly, we're very encouraged across all leading indicators that the momentum that we saw through the fall season has very much continued into the spring season, which is very well advanced, as you will know, which gives us good confidence that the growth and the return to growth that we've seen through December is very much going to be sustained through this full year.
That's great. Can I just tack on one more. I don't think I heard you talk about the pricing environment, to what extent has putting our price a little bit more than you might have been able to in recent years, supported your ability to achieve that 5% growth that was impressive in the last quarter.
Sure. You're right. I think first thing, given the inflationary environment in the past couple of years, we have been able to increase prices sort of modestly and it has, I think, contributed to that overall sort of 5% growth. I think there's -- it's 1% to 2% of that with the balance being made up of modestly favorable enrollment environment, which we think is less than 1% when you strip out things like dual enrollment from the headline numbers with the balance being made up of sell-through improvement and share gain.
Your next question is coming from James Sanchez with Franklin Templeton.
So I had one on the Work segment. I was wondering who are the primary customers for Ed2Go InfoSec? Is it like direct-to-student model or are enterprises paying for this training to provide to their employees?
Yes, James, it's Michael. Happy to chime in on this. So our primary model with the work business is that we are working through our institutional partners. Those are over 1,500 4-year and 2-year colleges in the United States who acquired the customers through their continuing ad department, and we are providing the white-label solution for the courses. So the key benefit and the key differentiation with many of our direct-to-consumer customer is that we have significantly lower customer acquisition cost through that channel. In addition, and alluding to the second part of your question, we are actively building a direct to employer model, but it is still in its early stages. We signed a number of initial customers, and we are looking forward to expanding that channel. Again, our sharp focus is on overall profitability of the business. And for that, we are focusing very specifically on the customer acquisition cost in this segment.
Great. That's very helpful. And then -- sorry I am battling through cold. For inclusive access on average, what kind of discount does the student see versus like the traditional model of them going out and buying the product from you directly? And then kind of what are the benefits for Cengage in that model?
Well, let me take that in reverse order, if I may, James. So the benefit for Cengage are really the certainty of the sell-through. So in other words, when we have an inclusive access agreement, the model still works that we win the adoption 1 adoption at a time, in other words, with the individual fact or the department. There are really no institution-wide adoption agreements with very few exceptions in for-profit schools. However, the benefit after that is then when the cost of the cost material after we won the adoption is built into the tuition, the sell-through is significantly higher and also guaranteed by the institution. So we know that the vast majority of the class will actually get their gross materials, and they will get them on day 1 of the class. The discount to the student is meaningful to all the other alternatives that are out there. It depends on the institution really and on the course, but it could be anywhere from 10 to 15% to 20% discount that the student is saying.
Okay. Great. And then just a quick follow through. It kind of sounded like there's maybe like a guaranteed minimum amount of seats that will take the inclusive access opt in or is that right? Or is there no -- if it's a 30 kid class, the guarantee at least 15 will take it to you. Is that...
That's typically the feature of those inclusive access contracts. That's correct.
Okay. Great. That's awesome. And then just one last one. Kind of what kind of growth do you expect to see from the K-12 segment? And will [indiscernible] the headwind moving forward?
Bob, do you want to grab that?
Yes, sure. So the first point I'd make is, which I'm sure isn't lost on folks is -- and yes, our K-12, our secondary business is very different to some of the larger players in the K-12 market that you're perhaps thinking of as comparators. And that's a function of our very intentional withdrawal from the K-5 market and the very high volatility of the basal adoption cycle. So we are very intentionally focused on core high school, middle school and advanced placement in career and technical education, which is also very much aligned with our overarching education for employment strategy. And an important feature of those segments of the market is that you have less exposed to that state adoption cycle and a very high volatility and all the risk that comes with it. And in the segments that we do operate, we see very stable demand patterns. So if you look back over the course of the past 3 to 4 years, you've seen that we've been able to achieve a very steady and good growth in our secondary segment. And we expect, given those features, to be able to maintain steady growth going forward. And that's also taking into account the fact that we have very limited exposure based on sort of detailed assessment with our customers to [indiscernible] funding So there isn't any great reliance in our established sort of revenue base on Esa.
Your next question for today is coming from Gordon [indiscernible] with Anchorage Capital.
I just wanted to confirm, I have a couple, but on the ELPP guidance for fiscal '24, does that include any of the $60 million to $90 million of cost savings?
No, it does not. The guidance -- the $90 million to $100 million of cost savings is incremental in fiscal '25, where we'll see an estimated $60 million. And then the balance, $30 million to $40 million in fiscal '26.
Got it. Okay. And then I wanted to also clarify just on the one-off costs associated with it. I was a little confused of what you're saying. So you're saying that there's $80 million of one-off costs and half of that will be in fiscal '24. Is that the right way to think about it?
Yes, I think the two things just to clarify, most of that $80 million, the vast majority of it is cash cost. So the P&L and the cash payments are largely going to follow one another. And we estimate of that $80 million, 50% to 60% of it will be paid out in cash by the end of March this year, which really speaks to how advanced we expect to be with the implementation of those plans by the end of this year, which really underwrites our conviction in our ability to deliver the cost savings next year and beyond.
Okay. But you mentioned like $33 million year-to-date. So is that...
Yes. So there's other things in that $33 million. So what I was trying to just give you some help with is if you look at the cash flow statement in the deck, you'll see onetime nonoperating costs of $33 million. By the end of the year, taking account of the full 50% to 60%, that number is going to be more like $60 million, if you think about your cash flow projections for the year.
Got it. Okay. Understood. That makes sense. And then on the research side, the ELPP kind of degradation was kind of in excess of of what, like typical decremental margins might be. So I'm curious kind of what might have drove the weakness in ELPP for research specifically relative to the magnitude of the revenue declines?
Yes, I think there's a couple of things. The first thing I would say is the revenue decline is very much sort of a temporary timing effect impacted by sort of year-on-year phasing of renewals and archive sales. And we expect for the full year research to be back in the territory of positive growth. And with that, the ELPP recovering. A big influence on research, ELPP is the timing of sort of prepublication costs. And we've been investing in a number of areas, building out sort of products, which has impacted phasing of that spend year-to-date. So that's having a bit of a drag when you [indiscernible] in year-to-date.
Got it. Okay. And then I guess just two more for me. Like this business is obviously becoming like a lot more difficult to model on a quarterly basis. And I know you guys have had a lot of seasonal things and structural secular changes and [indiscernible], et cetera. I'm curious, at some point, does that start to normalize out? Or should we just be looking at this more like an annual basis on a go-forward basis?
I think -- so two things. I think you bring the smile to my face because we've discussed this at length in the past on these calls. I think it is getting less bumpy, but we're not done with some of the big factors that are influencing it. So you've seen in the U.S. Higher Ed business, the very significant growth in institutional models, and that's continuing to shift revenue from student pays, which typically falls pre the end of September into the following quarter. So you're still going to see some bumpiness. It's getting smoother. I still believe it's better and to look across the whole academic cycle, which is why we have and will continue to present trading 12-month numbers alongside our sort of quarterly and year-to-date numbers. The other thing which I'm sure you're aware of and comes through in a couple of the comments I made earlier is the year-on-year comps this year bumpier still because of the supply chain pressures that impacted order fulfillment last year, particularly in secondary, but those are pretty much smoothed out now through the third quarter.
Got it. Okay. And then just the last one for me, just on kind of some of the things that are going on with the DOE right now. Do you guys have any comment or any insight into which way you think it's going to go as far as opt-in versus opt-out?
Well, I would say, it's Michael. I would say we are still in the middle of the process. And I do think that as part of the process, the DOE is hearing from institutions, particularly. And the rationale for the institutions, they're pretty unified in that they believe that the current model -- the current inclusive axis model is beneficial for the students, for the faculty and for the institutions. It is very hard to predict in an election year, what the actual outcome of all of this is, but we are actively participating in the process. And we hope that the rationale, what's good, ultimately, for the student will prevail. In any event, we are concerned about it, but we are not overly concerned about it in the sense that even if the department goes through with a more directive language, there are other ways with which the student can actually get their materials and will be very motivated to get the materials from us and we have multiple channels into that student. So we believe that the model is a good model, but there are other models that are available that will ultimately make sure that the student gets the material.
Your next question for today is a follow-up question coming from Nick Dempsey.
I just wanted to follow up on last question there. I read somewhere that it could potentially be only title for students who might be the ones who are opting in. Just wondering if you've got any rough sense of what proportion of [indiscernible] folks would be titled for? And the other one, just any sense of the timing of when we'll find out about this opt-in, opt-out decision?
Yes, I can take the latter. Maybe Bob can take the former. I don't have that at my fingertips, Nick. In terms of timing, any rule could not go into effect by statute until the middle of next year. So it wouldn't affect this fall season, but the next fall seasons, fall season of calendar '25. So any impact would be not until then. Bob, do you know the percentage of [ Title IV ] students in our [indiscernible]
No, I don't, off the top of my head, but I mean, I think two things I'd say is if I think about our penetration of different sectors, the institutional market in terms of community colleges, 2-year 4 year. It's very consistent with the overall market. So I would expect that portion [ Title IV ] students to be broadly similar as well. But then I come back to the point you already made, Michael, given our dominant format in digital in U.S. higher Ed is our online platforms, our courseware with high sell-through with homework requirements very much built into how faculty teaches. I come back to whilst we're concerned, we're not overly concerned and that we expect the students to ultimately continue to use our products and services given how they're used by institutions.
We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Michael for closing remarks.
Thank you, and thanks, everybody, for participating today. We are looking forward to updating you on our full year financial results at the end of our fiscal year. Thank you very much, and have a good day.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.