Earnings Preview: IAC / InterActive Corp.

IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) is expected to report Q2 earnings before market open Wednesday, July 30, with a conference call scheduled for 11:00 am ET.

Guidance

Analysts are looking for a profit of 31c on revenue of $1.6B. The consensus range is 28c to 36c for EPS, and revenue of $1.56B to $1.62B, according to First Call.

Views

On July 22, the company said it will take impairment charges of $170M because the housing crisis has lowered the value of its real estate and mortgage businesses. In a regulatory filing, IAC said it will write down the value of its lending segment by $100M and will take a $70M hit on its real estate segment because of damage to their goodwill. The company commented that the valuations for the businesses units had to be adjusted because the potential for future profitability was hurt because of the mortgage crisis. The company is also planning to cut costs and take other actions to reduce Ticketmaster's 2009 operating expenditures by around $35M. New CFO Brian Regan said the company may use excess cash to buy back stock after the spin-offs are completed.

Analysts and investors will be looking for comments on the spin-offs of its HSN home shopping network, Ticketmaster, LendingTree.com and Interval time-share businesses, as well as the proposed 1-for-2 reverse stock split in connection with the moves. Additionally, analysts will look for comments on future plans for the Ask.com search engine and its other Web sites.