CoStar Group 10-Q 2022-06-30

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-Q

For the quarterly period ended June 30, 2022

OR

For the transition period from ______ to ______

Commission file number 0-24531

CoStar Group, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

(202) 346-6500

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes x No o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No x

As of July 22, 2022, there were 395,949,425 shares of the registrant’s common stock outstanding.

COSTAR GROUP, INC.

FORM 10-Q

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I — FINANCIAL INFORMATION

COSTAR GROUP, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(in thousands, except per share data)

(unaudited)

See accompanying notes.

COSTAR GROUP, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSI****VE INCOME

(in thousands)

(unaudited)

See accompanying notes.

COSTAR GROUP, INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(in thousands)

(unaudited)

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The following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contains “forward-looking statements,” including statements about our beliefs and expectations. There are many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in any forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated under the heading “Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements” at the end of this Item 2 and “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 (the “2021 Form 10-K”), as well as those described from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

All forward-looking statements are based on information available to us on the date of this filing, and we assume no obligation to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our 2021 Form 10-K, our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.

Overview

CoStar Group, Inc. (the “Company,” “CoStar Group,” “we,” “us” or “our”) is a leading provider of information, analytics and online marketplaces to the commercial real estate industry in the United States (“U.S.”) and United Kingdom (“U.K.”) based on the fact that we offer a comprehensive commercial real estate database available; have the largest research department in the industry; own and operate leading online marketplaces for commercial real estate and apartment listings in the U.S., based on the numbers of unique visitors and site visits per month; and provide more information, analytics and marketing services than any of our competitors. We have created and compiled a standardized platform of information, analytics and online marketplace services where industry professionals and consumers of commercial real estate, including apartments, and the related business communities, can continuously interact and facilitate transactions by efficiently accessing and exchanging accurate and standardized real estate-related information. Our service offerings span all commercial property types, including office, retail, industrial, multifamily, commercial land, mixed-use and hospitality. With our recent acquisitions of Homesnap, Inc. (“Homesnap”) and Homes Group, LLC ("Homes.com"), we also offer online platforms for marketing and workflow management for residential real estate agents and brokers and residential property listings for homebuyers.

We manage our business geographically in two operating segments, with our primary areas of measurement and decision-making being North America, which includes the U.S. and Canada, and International, which primarily includes Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Our most recent strategic acquisitions include Homes.com; ComReal Info, the owner and operator of BureauxLocaux in France and BIH the owner and operator of Business Immo, a leading commercial real estate news service provider in France. See Notes 5 and 8 to the accompanying Notes to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for further discussion of these acquisitions.

Our services are typically distributed to our clients under subscription-based license agreements that renew automatically, a majority of which have a term of at least one year. Upon renewal, many of the subscription contract rates may change in accordance with contract provisions or as a result of contract renegotiations. To encourage clients to use our services regularly, we generally charge a fixed monthly amount for our subscription-based services rather than charging fees based on actual system usage or number of paid clicks. Depending on the type of service, contract rates are generally based on one or more of the following factors: the number of sites, number of users, organization size, the client’s business focus, geography, the number of properties reported on or analyzed, the number and types of services to which a client subscribes, the number of properties a client advertises and the prominence and placement of a client's advertised properties in the search results. Our subscription clients generally pay contract fees on a monthly basis, but in some cases may pay us on a quarterly or annual basis. Our transaction-based services primarily consist of auction fees from our Ten-X online auction platform, which are generally calculated as a percentage of the final sales price for the commercial real estate property sold and recognized as revenue upon the successful closure of an auction. Other transaction-based services are described by service offering below.

Our primary brands include CoStar®, LoopNet®, Apartments.comTM, STR®, Ten-X®, BizBuySell®, LandsofAmericaTM, HomeSnap®, and Homes.com®, which are accessible via the Internet and through our mobile applications. Our principal service offerings are discussed in more detail below.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Current Economic Conditions

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant economic volatility, uncertainty and disruption around the world. Further, in response to the concerns over inflation risk, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in the first and second quarters of 2022 and signaled they expect additional rate increases. While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and current economic conditions continue to evolve, they have not materially affected our consolidated financial statements during 2021 or our condensed consolidated financial statements for June 30, 2022. It is currently unclear how the commercial real estate industry will ultimately be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses formulate and execute plans for employees to return to the office, implement hybrid work arrangements – allowing work from the office or home, or switch to all work from home. These activities may result in reduced demand for office space and rising interest rates may reduce demand for all types of real estate. If the demand for office space or other real estate decreases significantly, there could be a downturn in the commercial real estate market that may materially adversely affect many of our clients. A depressed commercial real estate market would have a negative impact on our core customer base, which could impact our customers’ ability to subscribe and pay for our services and reduce demand for our services. Reduced demand and increased cancellations could cause our revenues or our revenue growth rates to decline and reduce our profitability.

Service Offerings

Our portfolio of information, analytics and online marketplace services are branded and marketed to our customers and marketplace end users. Our services are primarily derived from a database of building-specific information and offering customers specialized tools for accessing, analyzing and using our information. Over time, we enhanced and expanded, and we expect to continue to enhance and expand, our existing information, analytics and online marketplace services and we have developed, and we expect to continue to develop, additional services that use our comprehensive database to meet the needs of our existing customers as well as potential new categories of customers.

Our principal information, analytics and online marketplace services are described in the following paragraphs by type of service:

CoStar

CoStar® is our subscription-based integrated platform for commercial real estate intelligence, which includes information about off

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We provide information, analytics and online marketplace services to commercial real estate and related business communities within the regions where we operate which primarily include, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. The functional currency for a majority of our operations is the local currency, with the exception of certain STR international locations for which the functional currency is the British Pound.

Fluctuations in the British pound, Canadian dollar and Euro may have an impact on our business, results of operations and financial position. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2022, revenues denominated in foreign currencies were approximately 4%. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2022 our revenues would have decreased by approximately $2 million and $4 million, respectively, if the U.S. dollar exchange rate used strengthened by 10%. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2022, our revenues would have increased by approximately $2 million and $4 million, respectively, if the U.S. dollar exchange rate used weakened by 10%. In addition, we have assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies. We currently do not use financial instruments to hedge our exposure to exchange rate fluctuations with respect to our foreign subsidiaries. We may seek to enter into hedging transactions in the future to reduce our exposure to exchange rate fluctuations, but we may be unable to enter into hedging transactions successfully, on acceptable terms or at all. As of June 30, 2022, accumulated other comprehensive loss included a loss from foreign currency translation adjustments of approximately $30 million.

We do not have material exposure to market risks associated with changes in interest rates related to cash equivalent securities held as of June 30, 2022. As of June 30, 2022, we had approximately $4.0 billion of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. If there is an increase or decrease in interest rates, there will be a corresponding increase or decrease in the amount of interest earned on our cash and cash equivalents. We currently diversify our cash and cash equivalents holdings amongst multiple financial institutions and AAA rated Government and Treasury Money Market Funds.

We are subject to interest rate market risk in connection with our revolving credit facility. On July 1, 2020, we entered into the 2020 Credit Agreement, which provides for variable rate borrowings of up to $750 million. On July 1, 2020, we issued $1.0 billion aggregate principal amount of 2.800% Senior Notes due July 15, 2030. Changes in interest rates would not have a material impact to our current interest and debt financing expense, as all our borrowings except for our credit facility are fixed rate, and our credit facility is currently undrawn as of June 30, 2022. See Note 10 to the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for information regarding our 2020 Credit Agreement.

We had approximately $2.7 billion of goodwill and intangible assets as of June 30, 2022. As of June 30, 2022, we believe our intangible assets will be recoverable; however, changes in the economy, the industry in which we operate and our own relative performance could change the assumptions used to evaluate intangible asset recoverability. In the event that we determine that an asset has been impaired, we would recognize an impairment charge equal to the amount by which the carrying amount of the assets exceeds the fair value of the asset. We continue to monitor these assumptions and their effect on the estimated recoverability of our intangible assets.

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow for timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognized that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

As of June 30, 2022, we carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures. Based on the foregoing, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of June 30, 2022 and were operating at a reasonable assurance level.

We continue to implement a financial system that is designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our operational and financial accounting processes. This implementation is expected to continue beyond 2022. Consistent with any process change that we implement, the design of the internal controls has and will continue to be evaluated for effectiveness as part of our overall assessment of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures. We expect that the implementation of this system will further improve our internal controls over financial reporting.

Other than the implementation of a new financial system noted above, there have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during our most recent fiscal quarter that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

PART II — OTHER INFORMATION

**Item 1.**Legal Proceedings

Currently, and from time to time, we are involved in litigation incidental to the conduct of our business. We are not currently a party to any lawsuit or proceeding that, in the opinion of our management based on consultations with legal counsel, is likely to have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations. See Note 12 of the Notes to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for further discussion.

In addition to the other information set forth in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, you should carefully consider the factors disclosed in Part I, “Item 1A Risk Factors” in our 2021 Form 10-K, which could materially affect our business, financial condition or future results. The risks described in our 2021 Form 10-K are not the only risks facing our Company. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial also may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and/or results of operations. There have been no material changes to the Risk Factors as previously disclosed in Part I, “Item 1A Risk Factors” in our 2021 Form 10-K.

**Item 2.**Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

The following table is a summary of our repurchases of common stock during each of the three months in the quarter ended June 30, 2022:

ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

(1) The number of shares purchased consists of shares of common stock tendered by employees to the Company to satisfy the employees' minimum tax withholding obligations arising as a result of vesting of restricted stock grants under the Company’s 2016 Stock Incentive Plan, as amended, which shares were purchased by the Company based on their fair market value on the trading day immediately preceding the vesting date. None of these share purchases were part of a publicly announced program to purchase common stock of the Company.

**Item 3.**Defaults Upon Senior Securities

None.

**Item 4.**Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

None.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.