SAN ANTONIO, Aug 04, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Rackspace(R) Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX), the world's leading specialist in the hosting and cloud computing industry, announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011.

Net revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was $247.2 million, up 7.5% from the previous quarter and 32.0% from the second quarter of 2010. Net revenue for the second quarter of 2011 was positively impacted by currency exchange rates when compared to the first quarter of 2011 by $1.1 million and the second quarter of 2010 by $5.1 million.

Total server count increased to 74,028, up from 70,473 servers at the end of the previous quarter, and total customers increased to 152,578, up from 142,441 at the end of the previous quarter.

"This past quarter we made good progress toward our goal of accelerating revenue growth while strengthening the business. While we still have lots to accomplish throughout the year, we remain on the right track to achieve our goals for 2011," said Karl Pichler, chief financial officer.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $81.6 million, a 7.5% increase compared to the first quarter of 2011 and a 31% increase compared to the second quarter of 2010. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 33.0% compared to 33.0% for the previous quarter and 33.2% for the second quarter of 2010. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin were negatively impacted by a non-cash charge of $2.8 million for the quarter relating to data center operating leases.

Net income was $17.6 million for the quarter, up 27.1% from the previous quarter and 56.8% from the second quarter of 2010. Net income margin for the quarter was 7.1% compared to 6.0% for the previous quarter and 6.0% in the second quarter of 2010.

Cash flow from operating activities was $79 million for the second quarter of 2011. Capital expenditures were $95 million, including $49 million for purchases of customer gear, $17 million for data center build outs, $14 million for office build outs and $15 million for capitalized software and other projects.

Adjusted free cash flow ⁽¹⁾ for the quarter was $(18) million.

At the end of the second quarter of 2011, cash and cash equivalents were $132 million. Debt obligations totaled $139 million, consisting of $137 million related to capital leases and $2 million related to current and non-current debt.

On a worldwide basis, Rackspace employed 3,712 Rackers as of June 30, 2011, up from 3,492 Rackers as of March 31, 2011 and 3,002 Rackers as of June 30, 2010.

"During the second quarter we grew faster and generated higher returns, while investing to help us become bigger and more profitable in the future," said Lanham Napier, president and chief executive officer.

Rackspace Developments and Business Highlights

• Growing Momentum for OpenStack: With over 90 participating companies, the project continues to see major traction including its most recent code release, Cactus Code, accompanied by the Cactus Design Summit/OpenStack Conference in Santa Clara, CA, with over 500 attendees, 133 participating organizations and 217 developers. This event was followed by the announcement of Citrix's Project Olympus, a new cloud infrastructure product based on OpenStack, which is designed to allow enterprises to quickly build and deploy OpenStack based clouds. Last month, we also began to see major traction of OpenStack in Europe. We held an OpenStack Day in London -- the first for our community in Europe and had over 350 people in attendance.
• Domino's Pizza Group chooses Rackspace: To help drive revenue and future growth, pizza delivery expert Domino's Pizza Group has selected Rackspace to provide them with RackConnect, an integrated cloud hosting and dedicated managed hosting service. The service will give Domino's a scalable and cost-effective platform that will support the execution of the company's ambitious growth strategy and meet the evolving demands of its online business. Domino's sought a hosting service that would meet the evolving demands of its online business, and allow its internal IT team to focus less on the maintenance of its online properties and business applications, and more on innovation.
• Launch of Hosted Virtual Desktop: In May, Rackspace announced the availability of Rackspace Hosted Virtual Desktop. The hosted virtual desktop platform utilizes Rackspace's comprehensive hosting services and may be paired with industry leading desktop virtualization solutions from Citrix and other joint channel partners. The offering enables customers to host their virtual desktops on their choice of dedicated and/or cloud solutions.
• Continued European Cloud Growth: Since its launch in January, Rackspace's UK cloud has been steadily growing and now has over 5,000 customers. To help meet this demand, the UK added new cloud services including Cloud Servers with managed service level and Cloud Load Balancers. The new UK offerings build upon Rackspace's existing portfolio and are already available in the US.

Conference Call and Webcast

Management will host a conference call to discuss the results starting today at 4:30 p.m. ET.

To access the conference call, please dial 888-523-1227 from the United States or dial 719-325-2249 from abroad and reference pass code 4289158. A live webcast and a replay of the conference call will be available on Rackspace's website, located at ir.rackspace.com.

About Rackspace Hosting

Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud platform. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support(R) to its customers, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company and was featured on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. The company was also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the "2010 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting." For more information, visit www.rackspace.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected operational and financial results, long term investment strategies, growth plans, expected results from the integration of technologies and acquired businesses, the performance or market share relating to products and services; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements or assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include infrastructure failures, the deterioration of economic conditions or fluctuations, disruptions, instability or downturns in the economy, the effectiveness of managing company growth, technological and competitive factors, regulatory factors, and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, filed with the SEC on February 22, 2011 and in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2011, expected to be filed later this month. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

(1) Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Adjusted EBITDA (Non-GAAP financial measure)

We define Adjusted EBITDA as Net Income, plus Income Taxes, Total Other Income (Expense), Depreciation and Amortization, and non-cash charges for share-based compensation.

Adjusted EBITDA is a metric that is used in our industry by the investment community for comparative and valuation purposes. We disclose this metric in order to support and facilitate the dialogue with research analysts and investors.

Note that Adjusted EBITDA is not a measure of financial performance under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (GAAP) and should not be considered a substitute for net income, which we consider to be the most directly comparable GAAP measure. Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, and when assessing our operating performance, you should not consider Adjusted EBITDA in isolation, or as a substitute for net income or other consolidated income statement data prepared in accordance with GAAP. Other companies may calculate Adjusted EBITDA differently than we do, limiting its usefulness as a comparative measure. See our Adjusted EBITDA to net income reconciliations in the table below.

Return on Capital (ROC) (Non-GAAP financial measure)

We define Return on Capital (ROC) as follows:

ROC = Net Operating Profit After Tax (NOPAT)
Average Capital Base

NOPAT = Income from operations x (1 - Effective tax rate)

Average Capital Base = Average of (Interest bearing debt + stockholders' equity - excess cash) = Average of (Total assets - excess cash - accounts payables and accrued expenses - deferred revenues - other non-current liabilities and deferred income taxes); calculated on a quarterly basis.

We define excess cash as the amount of cash and cash equivalents that exceeds our operating cash requirements, which is calculated as three percent of our annualized net revenue for the three months prior to period end. We will periodically review the calculation and adjust it to reflect our projected cash requirements for the upcoming year.

We believe that ROC is an important metric for investors in evaluating a company's performance. ROC relates after-tax operating profits with the capital that is placed into service. It is therefore a performance metric that incorporates both the Statement of Income and the Balance Sheet. ROC measures how successfully capital is deployed within a company.

Note that ROC is not a measure of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered a substitute for return on assets, which we consider to be the most directly comparable GAAP measure, and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. See our ROC reconciliation to return on assets below.

Adjusted Free Cash Flow (Non-GAAP financial measure)

We define Adjusted Free Cash Flow as Adjusted EBITDA plus non-cash deferred rent, less total capital expenditures (including vendor financed equipment purchases), cash payments for interest, net, and cash refunds (payments) for income taxes, net.

We believe that Adjusted Free Cash Flow is an important metric for investors in evaluating how a company is currently using cash generated, and may indicate its ability to generate cash that can potentially be used by the business for capital investments, acquisitions, reduction of debt, payment of dividends, etc. Note that Adjusted Free Cash Flow is not a measure of financial performance under GAAP and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. See our Adjusted Free Cash Flow reconciliation to Adjusted EBITDA below, as well as our reconciliation of Net income to Adjusted EBITDA provided above.

Net Leverage (Non-GAAP financial measure)

We define Net Leverage as Net Debt divided by Adjusted EBITDA (trailing twelve months).

We believe that Net Leverage is an important metric for investors in evaluating a company's liquidity. Note that Net Leverage is not a measure of financial performance under GAAP and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies. See our Net Leverage calculation below.

SOURCE: Rackspace Hosting, Inc.

Rackspace Hosting, Inc.
Investor Relations
Bryan McGrath, 210-312-5230
ir@rackspace.com
or
Corporate Communications
Rachel Ferry, 210-312-3732
rachel.ferry@rackspace.com