Nov 9, 2005
Operator
Good morning and welcome to the FIserv earnings conference calls for the third quarter of 2005. We currently have 85 participants on this call and all participants will be able to listen only until the question-and-answer session begins following the presentation.
At the request of FIserv today's call is being recorded and also is being broadcast live over the Internet. The call is expected to last 45 minutes.
You may disconnect from the call at any time. Now I would like to introduce the Fiserv management team in attendance on this call.
Les Muma, President and CEO, Norm Balthasar, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Kenneth Jensen, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Tom Hirsch, Senior Vice President and Controller. At this time I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr.
Les Muma.
[Les Muma
Good morning. Welcome to Fiserv's third quarter earnings conference call.
We appreciate your participation and look forward to presenting our third quarter results and answering your questions. Before we start, Fiserv would like to state that the Company may make forward-looking statements regarding 2005 and 2006 earnings and revenue targets, sales pipelines, and acquisition prospects during the course of this conference call.
Such statements are covered by the Safe Harbor included in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may differ from actual results and are subject to a number of factors.
Please refer to our third quarter earnings release for a discussion of these factors and non-GAAP financial measures discussed in this conference call. Our earnings release is accessible on our website, www.fiserv.com.
Fiserv posted diluted earnings of $0.58 per share for continuing operations in the third quarter. That included an income tax benefit of $0.03 per share.
We have raised our estimated 2005 full-year diluted earnings to $2.28 to $2.31 per share excluding a realized gain of $0.14 per share in the first quarter, from the sale of our Fiserv stock. Our financial segments internal revenue growth rate continues in the mid single digits at 6% for the first nine months of 2005 compared to 2% in the prior year.
Our BillMatrix acquisition was completed on August 12th. This acquisition further solidifies our extensive payment capabilities and gives Fiserv a significant foothold in the fast growing area of expedited electronic bill payment.
We are excited about the future potential of electronic bill payment and look forward to working with the innovative BillMatrix management team. Fiserv is taking an important step towards further globalization of its operations through the formation of a new business, Fiserv Global Services.
While Fiserv currently conducts business in 60 countries, this new initiative will further globalize our delivery capabilities in our business unit and client in the range of technology and processing disciplines and expand our market into other parts of the world not currently served by Fiserv. In October we hired Arun Maraswori as President of Fiserv Global Services and as a member of our management committee.
Arun was previously the President of CFC's India operation, which he grew to nearly 4,000 employees. We are pleased to have someone of Arun's extensive experience in growing this type of business on our management team.
Before we open the lines for questions I would reiterate that our performance through the third quarter of 2005 was strong and that looking forward our management team continues to focus on both acquisitions and organic growth and providing long-term shareholders returns. We will now open the line for questions.