Zillow adjusted its financial outlook for the year on a call this morning with CEO Spencer Rascoff. He said that Zillow is expecting earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the range of $80 million to $85 million for 2015, down from analysts’ projections.
Rascoff blamed the FTC review of the Trulia merger for the company’s lower estimates and poor performance of some Trulia assets. This was due due to some adjustments Zillow has made with Trulia products.
“The work we are doing this year lays the foundation for an incredibly bright 2016 and 2017. However, 2015 is a transition year and we’re trending a couple quarters behind where we’d like to be, due to the protracted [FTC] approval process which only ended two months ago,” Rascoff said, referring to the recent deal to merge with Trulia.
Rascoff also said revenue estimates would be off. The call put some blame on Trulia’s performance, describing it as “softer than we’d like” in part because of the FTC review and product changes. He described 2015 as a “little messy.”
The Seattle company has found itself in the middle of several controversial situations, from employee litigation to a lawsuit with its competitor Move to the loss of listings due to the termination of its agreements with ListHub.
Rascoff did say that the company has filled the ListHub gap better than he expected earlier in the year, before the April 7 contract termination.
This story has been updated.