CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago Park District Board chair Avis LaVelle resigned on Wednesday, in the latest fallout from the lifeguard sex abuse scandal.

LaVelle informed the board of her decision to resign at the end of Wednesday’s board meeting.

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“Let me be clear, I am not being forced out. Mayor Lightfoot did not ask me to resign. She has been resolute in her support for me both publicly and privately, and for that I am profoundly grateful,” she said.

Nonetheless, her resignation comes only after at least three aldermen called for her to step down, in the wake of a scathing independent investigator’s report found district management failed to properly investigate widespread claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and bullying involving Park District lifeguards.

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) was the first alderman to call for LaVelle and other Park District officials to resign after it was revealed the district didn’t take steps to begin a proper investigation until WBEZ Public Radio first reported on the scandal in April.

“When we have systems like this that are really poorly run; that have a culture of abuse, we need to root it out,” Waguespack said, “and I think it starts at the top – but we need to make sure it goes all the way to the bottom.”

Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) and Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) also have called for LaVelle to step down.

“Chicago Park District needs new leadership that is up to the task of making our parks safe and creating structures of accountability,” Rodrigeuz-Sanchez posted last week on Twitter.

In announcing her resignation, Lavelle apologized for the scandal that also led to the ouster of Park District CEO Mike Kelly last month.

“I am deeply sorry for the culture of abuse and harassment that was allowed to fester in the beaches and pools division of the Chicago Park District. It is apparent that this went on many years, even decades before I joined the park district board. I take responsibility because it came to light on my watch,” she said.

Scathing reports released last week detailed years of abuse in the aquatics division of the parks, describing a “code of silence” within the district.

According to an independent investigator’s report, Kelly took no action until six months after he had received a complaint about abuse from the parents of a female lifeguard.

Tuesday’s report by the Arnold & Porter Law Firm and a separate report by the district’s inspector general detailed multiple sexual assault claims by Park District lifeguards and what the Park District called “egregious mishandling of complaints” by management – as well as organizational failures that made it so the victims were not protected.

As CBS 2’s Tara Molina reported, the reports detail scathing accusations of everything from sexual harassment to bullying among Chicago lifeguards, One woman called it a “culture” of violence and claimed there was a “code of silence.”

Read The Reports Below (Warning: Reports contain offensive language and detailed descriptions of assault and abuse)

Report By Park District Office Of The Inspector General

Report By Arnold & Porter Law Firm

LaVelle has previously said she apologized to the girls and young women who were assaulted, abused, and harassed; but before Wednesday had said she wouldn’t step down.

She also pointed the finger at Kelly for failing to immediately launch a full investigation into complaints of widespread sexual assault, abuse, and harassment of girls and young women who worked as lifeguards at the city’s pools and beaches, while assuring LaVelle and others that he was handling complaints properly.

“I was assured repeatedly by former Superintendent Mike Kelly throughout the process that management was taking corrective steps to address these problems systemwide,” LaVelle said last week. “What I never expected was that it would take so long to get to the point of holding accountable those who are responsible.”

However, she also acknowledged she shares in the blame for the district’s handling of the scandal.

“It is not acceptable that any of this continued to happen. It is not acceptable that this started long before any of us, that I’m aware of were, here. It’s all unacceptable, and I accept my responsibility as a person who was sitting in this chair at the time that this was exposed,” she said. “I can’t be responsible for the people who came before me. I can be responsible for my part in it, and I have accepted that. Mistakes were made. It was a dysfunctional investigative process. It was a dysfunctional response process.”

LaVelle’s resignation comes after interim Park District CEO and General Manager Rosa Escareño last week asked for the resignation of Park District Chief Programming Officer Alonzo Williams, who was notified by Kelly about a sexual misconduct complaint as early as August 2019 and did not take corrective action. Escareño also fired two senior managers – Assistant Director of Recreation Eric Fischer and Beaches and Pools Unit Manager Adam Bueling – for also failing to take proper action with regard to sexual misconduct allegations.

The latter two top managers, were both were placed on emergency suspension last month, based on information Kelly received from the inspector general.

Kelly resigned as Park District superintendent last month, after Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded the Park District board fire him for his handling of the scandal.

Kelly’s resignation came just weeks after Chicago Park District Inspector General Elaine Little resigned amid her office’s ongoing investigation into widespread sexual harassment targeting female lifeguards.

Little’s resignation came after WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio reported Little was herself under an investigation into “alleged conflicts and wrongdoing” upon leaving a post as director of investigations at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center three years ago.

In August, Kelly said the investigation by Little’s office had resulted in disciplinary action against 42 employees since the probe into harassment among lifeguards began last March.

A total of 14 Park District employees have now been fired or prevented for rehire since this started, while four employees still under emergency suspension as investigations continue.

The two reports went into detail about multiple specific allegations of sexual assault and abuse, as well as harassment and hazing. There are a total of 27 open investigations right now.

The OIG report details four allegations that date back as far as 2015.

The report alleges that year, 20-year-old natatorium instructor sexually assaulted a 17-year-old female colleague at a party, and the victim was taunted and mocked about the assault by her coworkers the next day. The victim said she did not report the assault because she was ashamed and afraid, and had no faith that Park District supervisors would properly handle the complaint given the culture of the Aquatics Department.

Investigators later learned of another allegation involving the same instructor and another female lifeguard in 2019. This female lifeguard, 21 at the time, also said she did not report the incident because she did not think anyone would believe her, the report said. The Inspector General recommended that the instructor be fired and be designated as “do not rehire.”

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In another complaint dating back to 2016, a then 18-year-old male lifeguard is accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague after offering to driving her home when she became intoxicated at a party. This victim was also mocked by her coworkers when she returned to work, the report said. The report added that the following summer, the same male lifeguard harassed her and gave her undesirable work assignments in what she believed was retaliation.

The female lifeguard declined to file a police report, and the male lifeguard was first placed on emergency suspension and then resigned, the report said. He declined to be interviewed for the investigation, but the OIG recommended that he too be placed on the “do not rehire” list.

Another 16-year-old female lifeguard reported that in 2020, she began a consensual intimate relationship with an 18-year-old male lifeguard and provided nude photos to him – only to have them shared widely on social media. This female lifeguard also reported the male lifeguard later sexually assaulted her in his car while driving her home.

Another female lifeguard, 19, also filed a complaint with the Park District claiming the same male lifeguard repeatedly harassed her, hectored other employees, and yelled at parkgoers. This lifeguard also went on to resign, and was recommended for the “do not hire” list.

The fourth complaint in the OIG report is the only one that has resulted in criminal charges so far. The report said this past August, investigators learned that a 32-year-old male lifeguard supervisor engaged in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female lifeguard under his supervision.

Authorities announced last week that the supervisor, Mauricio Ramirez, 32, has been charged with one felony count each of criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Cook County prosecutors said Ramirez was the girl’s supervisor as she was working as a lifeguard this summer, and was well aware of her age when he began talking to her in July, when she told him she was a 16-year-old junior in high school. Prosecutors said, on two occasions between July and September, Ramirez picked the girl up from her school in his car, and later pulled over and sexually assaulted her, before taking her home.

In August, he also drove her home from work, and on the drive home, he sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.

In response to the OIG report, Escareño moved immediately to ensure the one male lifeguard still working for the Park District would be fired, and none of the four would be hired by the Park District in the future.

Meanwhile, the Arnold & Porter report went into further detail about multiple allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct among Park District lifeguards. The law firm said it found sufficient evidence that Kelly violated the Park District policy on sexual harassment by failing to report a complaint to the OIG until six months after he had first received it.

Williams, Fischer, and Bueling were likewise accused of failing to take proper action.

The complaint in this case came from a female lifeguard who reported that she was subjected to sexual harassment, assault, hazing, bullying, and other abuse while working at the Oak Street Beach.

The law firm report said on Aug. 30, 2019, Kelly received an email from the father of a female lifeguard – who was described as a friend of Kelly’s and someone with whom he did business. The father advised that Kelly should send someone to remove a “fight song” that was posted on the wall of the lifeguard trailer at the Oak Street Beach “before press or somebody runs with it.”

The female lifeguard’s mother went on to detail the allegations. She said the lifeguards were required to memorize the “fight song,” which is composed of a litany of graphic vulgarities, and chant it as they did push-ups every morning. The mother also said lifeguards – most of them female – were regularly thrown in a five-foot-deep hole in the sand where they were degraded by having sand thrown on them.

Lifeguards were also threatened with hazing – involving such indignities as having to stand on a ledge for five hours straight, the mother reported. She further reported that her daughter was thrown against a locker by an older male guard, and that lifeguards were given mocking, degrading awards at a staff banquet – which were so humiliating that one young woman went into the restroom and cried for the rest of the night.

The law firm report said Kelly responded to these complaints by forwarding the email to Williams with the message. “Take a look and let’s discuss.” The law firm said it found no evidence that any further action was taken at that point.

More than five months later on Feb. 7, 2020, the female lifeguard emailed Kelly and Fischer herself with the details of what she said had happened the summer before – when she was 17 years old. Her own report lined up with what her mother had reported the prior August, but she broke down more detail – including the names of about seven lifeguards who she said had participated in the misconduct.

The young woman also reported hazing rituals in which rookie lifeguards – who were usually underage – were forced to drink alcoholic beverages while singing the vulgar fight song repeatedly in push-up position until getting all the words right. She reported that pints of beer were taped to each rookie lifeguard’s hands, and when she refused to drink them, a guard tried to force a bottle of vodka down her throat.

The young woman also reported being verbally abused with degrading names and other remarks, hit on the back of the neck “extremely hard” by a male lifeguard, and being threatened with retaliation if she did not drink alcohol or smoke marijuana, the law firm report said. She also detailed the practices of female lifeguards being thrown in a hole and having sand thrown at them, and the mocking awards at the end-of-the-season banquet.

The young woman expressed concern that someone could be killed or permanently injured by “the stupidity of the so-called professional lifeguards,” that a girl could be sexually assaulted by lifeguards who are “high and not in the correct mental state,” and that the abuse could drive someone to suicide, the report said.

Kelly sent the young woman’s complaint to the OIG on March 19, 2020 – 41 days after he received it and six months after he first heard from the young woman’s parents, the law form report said.

The law firm report also another female lifeguard who had been working with the Park District for six years sent a complaint to Mayor Lori Lightfoot about her experience on March 6, 2020, and sent the same complaint to Bueling three days later. The Mayor’s office forward the complaint to Kelly on March 19, 2020, the report said.

In her complaint, this young woman reported she was sexually assaulted by a male lifeguard five years earlier when she was 17 and he was about 20, and was mocked for it by her coworkers afterward.

The young woman wrote, “there is a huge incidence of sexual violence within the Park District – from sexual harassment to sexual assault and rape,” and reported that sexually inappropriate comments and jokes were common even during work hours. She also described a code of silence within the Park District in which no one spoke up about the inappropriate comments and there was little support for those who wanted to file reports.

“Employees see how the perpetrators of sexual violence are either getting promoted to management positions or being allowed to continue working at their current positions even after complaints are made about them,” she wrote as quoted in the law firm report. “When complaints do get filed, repercussions are often mild. Most often employees are transferred to another location for a few days as ‘punishment’ but then prance right back where they came from.”

Based on the response by Kelly and the other Park District officials, the report concluded they failed to take proper action with regard to the female lifeguards’ complaints.

“We have a responsibility to take allegations of sexual misconduct seriously, and those in power failed in that duty and for that,” Escareño said. “On behalf of the Chicago Park District, I am sorry.”

The Park District said it will utilize the findings from the reports to overhaul policies and procedures for investigating complaints of sexual harassment or assault. The plan calls for a new Office of Protection that will investigate sexual harassment and misconduct and all other prohibited acts.

LaVelle’s full announcement Tuesday is below.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot released this statement:

“I thank Ms. LaVelle for her decades-long service to the City of Chicago.

I have full confidence in the Chicago Park District Board’s ability to move forward. Per state statute and further detailed in the Chicago Park District Code, the Vice President of the Board, Tim King, will assume all powers and duties as interim President of the Park District Board. Ms. LaVelle’s permanent successor will be named soon.

As the Park District moves forward in the days and months ahead, I am confident that important and essential work of restoring trust between the Park District and Chicago families will continue. The Board, the City of Chicago and the Park District, with the leadership of Interim General Superintendent Rosa Escareño, will leverage their collective strengths to protect patrons, strengthen organizational culture, and continue delivering the high-quality programs and environments that Chicagoans expect.

LaVelle previously served as the Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Northstar Lottery Group – which handled external affairs activities for Northstar and the Illinois Lottery.

LaVelle also runs the form A. LaVelle Consulting Services, which she founded in 2003. The firm helped lead grassroots campaigns that led to the reform of payday loan shop practices and electric energy rate deregulation, among other things.

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LaVelle also served as press secretary to retired Mayor Richard M. Daley in the early 1990s – handling crisis communications for the 1992 Chicago Flood and the planned Lake Calumet Airport. She went on to serve as National Pres Secretary for the Clinton/Gore presidential campaign in 1992, and served as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs under President Bill Clinton.

NortonLifeLock inc (NASDAQ:NLOK)
Q2 2022 Earnings Call
Nov 4, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for standing by. My name is Jerome and I’ll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the NortonLifeLock Fiscal 2022 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Today’s call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to pass the call over to Ms. Mary Lai, Head of Investor Relations. Miss, you may begin.

Mary Lai — Vice President-Investor Relations

Thank you, Jerome, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the NortonLifeLock’s fiscal 2022 second quarter earnings call. Joining me today to review our Q2 results are Vincent Pilette, CEO; and Natalie Derse, CFO.

As a reminder, there will be a replay of this call posted on the IR website, along with our earnings slides, press release and materials defining our non-GAAP metrics. I’d like to remind everyone that during this call, all references to the final metrics are non-GAAP and all growth rates are year-over-year, unless otherwise stated. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is included in our press release, which is available on our IR website at investor.nortonlifelock.com.

In addition, we previously announced the merger of NortonLifeLock and Avast. The information shared today will be limited to what has already been disclosed in the documents published on our website in connection with the deal. Today’s call contains statements regarding our business, financial performance and operations, including the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business and industry, which may be considered forward-looking statements and such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations.

Those statements are based on our current beliefs, assumptions and expectations and speak only as of the current date. For more information, please refer to the cautionary statement in our press release and the risk factors in our filings with the SEC and in particular, our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 2, 2021.

And now, I will turn the call over to our CEO. Vincent?

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mary. Welcome, and good afternoon, everyone. We’ve come a long way since we became a consumer-focused stand-alone company exactly two years ago today. As I reflect on NortonLifeLock transformation, I’m extremely proud of our team.We committed to operating within financial discipline and bringing meaningful and sustainable growth to this business, and we have delivered. We have relentlessly been building a strong track record and remain focused on meeting our long-term objectives.

As you’ve heard me share before, we are focused on driving growth by improving customer experience, scaling our integrated cybersafety platform and accelerating the pace of our product innovation from core security to trust-based digital solutions. By putting our customers first and relentlessly executing to our plan, we believe our long-term goals are within reach.

Our strategy is working. And as we delivered another quarter of solid and consistent growth, Q2 revenue was up 11%, with high single-digit growth in bookings. We are delivering strong profitability and continued EPS expansion, up almost 20% year-over-year.Our high single-digit bookings growth was in line to our long-term objectives and is reflective of our normal seasonality, with the first half of our fiscal year historically being seasonally lower. The start of Q2 was impacted by expected weaker summer demand and COVID reopening as more people mobilized or prioritized to travel and other activities.

As we balanced all of our operational metrics and investment, we finished the quarter with strong momentum, delivering our eighth straight quarter of net direct customer adds sequentially. Our direct customer count grew over 178,000 sequentially, and we added over 2.6 million customers year-over-year, bringing our total customer count to 23.3 million.In Q2, our direct-to-consumer revenue, which represented the majority of our business, was up 9%, with ARPU growing slightly quarter-over-quarter and unit retention stable. We have continued to build a richer and more robust product portfolio, as we reach more consumers on a global basis, while driving higher engagement with our existing customers.

Our Net Promoter Score continues to improve from low 40s last year to 49 this quarter, reflecting our focus on customer experience and providing peace of mind to our customers as they live their digital lives. Our international expansion efforts continued in Q2 and grew double digits similar to last quarter.

We continue to invest in our freemium model as it increases our consumer reach and awareness, and we are encouraged that our nascent expansion into identity internationally is now available in more than 20 countries across Europe and Asia. It is a critical component of our ability to provide more value to our customers outside of the US, replicating the success we have had with ID Advisor in Japan, where we combined dark web monitoring with elements of restoration.Our partner business posted double-digit revenue for the quarter — for the actually fourth straight quarter, up 25% in Q2. All channels contributed meaningfully to these results. Amongst those, the employee benefits channel delivered another very strong quarter. We’ve expanded beyond the United States, offering our employee benefit solutions to Canadian employers and unlocking a broader customer base.

Our investment in this area are paying off, as we have strengthened our sales team and market coverage in the last few quarters. We intend to expand our overall partner business, and we will continue to invest in our multichannel approach evaluating all potential opportunities and markets globally.Overall, we are on track to our plan and committed to investing in what we see as a long-term secular growth opportunity to develop the best cybersafety portfolio for consumers. As a result, we continued to accelerate the pace of our product innovation pipeline, as we work to bring cybersafety to every digital user and release products that help protect consumers’ devices, privacy and identity.

We opened the quarter with the release of Norton Utilities Ultimate, a new performance maintenance offering that helps create a faster and smoother and more secure experience for consumers whether they’re gaming or browsing or streaming content or more on their Windows PC.We expanded Norton family with new features, including Favorite Locations, to help parents establish approved geographic locations and receive notifications when their child’s device arrives or departs those set locations. We also introduced Alert Me, which helps parents inform about their children’s location by setting specific dates and times to receive automatic check-in alerts from the location of their child’s device. Both of these new features were quite timely as many kids headed back to school in person.

On the Identity front, we added payday loan lock to selected US LifeLock plans to help block the opening of fraudulent payday loans and other short-term loans. And we’ve added new features like social media monitoring in more markets to provide consumers with broader protection as their digital footprint expands. As awareness grows globally for identity protection, we continue to evolve our road map to protect our customers and provide the most relevant products and features to new audiences.As we continue to strengthen our privacy pillar and help provide additional ways for consumers to control their online privacy, we released Norton AntiTrack in the US, a new app and browser extension that helps prevent websites from tracking and profiling users in ways normal private browsers or VPNs cannot do. That way, people can protect and control their digital footprint from companies and websites that track online activities and collect or sell their personal data.

We’ve seen positive momentum from this new product release as consumers are seeing ways to protect their privacy. And I’m pleased to share that Norton AntiTrack has expanded now to APG and EMEA earlier this week. Privacy overall is one of the three pillars of our cybersafety portfolio, and we should continue to see investment in this area to help consumers manage their privacy and reputation online.In Q2, we also released our first environmental, social and governance report. This report highlights NortonLifeLock’s ongoing pledge to bring together our team, expertise and technology to help build a safe, inclusive and sustainable future. We are making good progress on this front, and I’m proud of all of our employees, the commitment we have made together to develop a responsible company. I encourage you to check all of our achievement in that area on our IR website.

Additionally, we were recognized by the Business Intelligence Group 2021 Sales and Marketing Technology Award or what they call the semis, which ranked NortonLifeLock as one of the top medium-sized companies of 2021 for innovation in sales and marketing technology. We were recognized for our efforts upgrading customer service operations with the development of a new internal sales platform that was built by our own in-house engineers and launched in the spring of 2021. This technology enable us to better deliver key customer services within a single easy-to-use interface.The platform also replaced a legacy vendor-supplied solution, driving cost efficiencies for the company. This is a great example of the team’s living our value. They advocated for the customer. They were empowered to take initiative to identify the opportunity, and they delighted customers while improving our business operations. And more importantly, they delivered.

Before I turn the call over to Natalie to discuss the financial results, I would like to provide an update on our proposed merger with Avast. We have made great progress, and we continue to be enthusiastic about the combination of the two companies and the opportunity to accelerate innovation in cybersafety. We crossed an important milestone today with NortonLifeLock shareholders voting to overwhelmingly support our ongoing transformation through the proposed merger with Avast with the next key step being the Avast shareholder vote scheduled for November 18.We’re also actively and collaboratively working through the antitrust and other regulatory processes in all relevant jurisdictions, and we believe we are on track to close mid of next calendar year 2022, as previously stated. Our strategy has been to protect and empower consumers as more and more of their lives move online, and this transaction will allow the combined companies to invest in and accelerate innovation for new cybersafety products.

And now, let me turn the call over to Natalie for more details on the financials.

Natalie Derse — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Vincent, and hello, everyone. To all our customers, shareholders and listeners around the world who are celebrating Diwali today, may the festival of lights bring joy and happiness to you and your families?

For today’s discussion, I will focus on non-GAAP financials, starting with our Q2 results and then provide our outlook for Q3 and full year. We delivered another solid quarter, rounding out a strong first half of our fiscal year. Our Q2 revenue was $695 million, up 11%. Our growth remains broad-based across geos and products. Bookings growth of 7% was supported by our renewal efforts, expanded product offerings and continued international expansion.

Our total direct customer count increased to 23.3 million, adding 2.6 million customers year-over-year and adding 178,000 net new customers quarter-over-quarter. This was our eighth consecutive quarter of sequential net direct customer adds.In a quarter, where there is seasonally lower demand, our strong net adds in Q2 is evidence that there is growing demand for our products, and we feel proud to have added over 300,000 net new customers in the first half of our fiscal year. Our operational metrics remain strong, with 85% unit retention and our monthly average revenue per user, or ARPU, increased on a sequential basis to $8.85.

As a result, our direct business maintained consistent growth momentum, up 9% in revenue. We continue to drive higher engagement with our existing loyal customers through the accelerated pace of new product releases, while scaling up our cross-sell efforts. We are also reaching more audiences with the expansion of our identity protection offerings into more international markets, providing broader cybersafety protection to newer cohorts of customers.

As Vincent mentioned earlier, our partner business again posted strong results in Q2, up 25% year-over-year with continued strength in employee benefits, as well as growth from other distribution channels. Although it accounts for approximately 10% of our total, our partner business remains a key tenet of our long-term growth strategy and will continue to be an important investment area for us, and we are encouraged by the year-to-date growth unlocks thus far.

Turning to profitability. Q2 operating margin was 52%, up 200 basis points year-over-year. We operate with a growth-focused approach in our investment decisions. With sales and marketing, we are constantly evaluating the effectiveness of our spend to optimize how we reach consumers and market our products to maximize the return on these investments for both the short term and long term in an increasingly competitive advertising environment.

With R&D, we have focused our efforts on increasing the pace of new product launches, while maintaining a robust evolving product pipeline for our customers. And we self-fund these investments through productivity gains and lower infrastructure costs, operating at 87% gross margin and with G&A less than 5% of revenue, as we drive long-term sustainable growth.Q2 net income was $255 million, up 19% year-over-year. Diluted EPS was $0.43 for the quarter, also up 19% year-over-year and at the high end of our guidance range. We remain focused on EPS expansion and achieving our long-term EPS objective of $3 that we shared back in May this year.

Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet. Q2 operating cash flow was $60 million, and free cash flow was $59 million, which included seasonal tax payments. Year-to-date operating cash flow was $318 million, in line with our net income improvement and growth. We ended Q2 with over $1.5 billion of total cash, which includes the cash proceeds from the July sale of our Mountain View Ellis building. We remain levered at approximately two times net debt and maintain both a strong liquidity position and a healthy balance sheet.

In Q2, we also returned approximately $73 million to shareholders in the form of our regular quarterly dividend of $0.125 per common share. For Q3, the Board of Directors has approved a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.125 per common share to be paid on December 15, 2021, for all shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 22, 2021, as described in the press release. And a reminder that while we still have approximately $1.8 billion remaining in the current share buyback program, we cannot deploy it in the short term due to the pending Avast transaction.

Now, turning to our Q3 and full year outlook. We expect Q3 non-GAAP revenue in the range of $695 million to $705 million, assuming stable currency rates quarter-over-quarter, which translates to 9% to 11% growth year-over-year. We expect Q3 non-GAAP EPS to be in the range of $0.42 to $0.44 per share.

For the full year, we expect non-GAAP revenue growth of 9% to 10% year-over-year in constant currency and non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.70 to $1.75, narrowing the range to the high end on both revenue and EPS versus what we shared with you back in May at our Analyst Day. We look forward to building on our growth momentum and consistent profitability in the second half of this year, and we are well positioned to deliver on our objectives.Even with the macro impacts around inflation, foreign exchange rate fluctuations and the evolving pandemic conditions, we have successfully navigated through and continued to hit expectations. As we look forward, we will continue to challenge ourselves to anticipate, prioritize and meet customer needs in a growth-focused manner.

Thank you for your time today, and I will now turn the call back to the operator to take your questions. Please do keep in mind we are not able to answer any questions related to any specific M&A at this time. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Saket Kalia from Barclays. Your line is now open.

Saket Kalia — Barclays — Analyst

Hey good afternoon. Hey Vincent. Hey Natalie. Thanks for taking my questions here. Natalie, maybe just to start with you. I was wondering if you could just double-click a little bit into the billings metric. I think we heard 7% growth in bookings, which was really good to hear. I think the billings growth is a little bit lower than — I come to that 5%. Can you just walk through maybe some of the puts and takes there? I know that maybe there was a slightly tougher compare. There’s always currency. I mean just maybe you could just touch on that growth kind of compared to bookings, kind of compared to billings growth in prior quarters.

Natalie Derse — Chief Financial Officer

Sure. Thanks, Saket. Look, I’m not surprised with the question around 7% bookings. I’m going to focus on bookings in the response to your question. But I’m also not surprised at our Q2 results as it’s in line with our models, our internal models. As you know, we don’t guide bookings, but we did share that Q2 is historically a seasonally lighter quarter. We also recognized early on that even if you look at the external search traffic metrics, either on Google metrics, analytics, etc, and you hone in on our branded and non-branded terms, we knew that search volume was lower than prior quarters than what we saw last year. And then we also saw very early on that the advertising spend being put into the market across our competitive landscape was up.

The other thing I’d encourage you guys to look at is, as you know, with our recurring business model, and as you know, with customer acquisition, when they get to the first year retention and renewal, there’s a healthy step-up in terms of the bookings amount that we get as those customers choose to renew with us. So you really have to date back to last year. In Q1, we added 379,000 net new customers. Again, factor in the seasonality component from Q1 to Q2, last year, at this time, we added about 117k net customers. When you factor into the model the step-up in the renewal bookings that we get from that renewable customer base, it would point you to a 7% result for us.

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

If I can add just a few step back, Saket, quarter in, quarter out, obviously, we represent bookings so investors can understand the underlying metrics. But revenue and bookings trend about the same way not every quarter, but on a multi-quarter trend. And we guided revenue for next quarter, 9% to 11%. Again, we don’t guide bookings, but we see this trending somewhat in that range.

Saket Kalia — Barclays — Analyst

Got it. Got it. That’s very helpful. Vincent, maybe for my follow-up for you. A lot of good things happening internationally. Can you just remind us how big is international currently as a percentage of the business? And sort of what’s — I guess how big can you see international long term as a percentage of total? And is that more of an antivirus type of market? Is that more of an identity monitoring market? Is it a little bit of both? Curious, how you sort of see international sort of longer term?

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

It’s a good question, Saket. I’ll give you the short Belgium answer. International is not big enough. Today, it represent about 30% of our business. As you know, we acquired Avira to accelerate our growth internationally. As you said, a lot of good efforts initially are offering in those outside of the US countries did not include identity elements. We now start to build up the portfolio to move above and beyond that security, moving into protecting the digital lives, exploring element of restoration and so what I call solutions, which includes services. I think on a long-term perspective, outside of the US, we have a huge structural growth opportunities.

Obviously, the proposed merger Avast will boost all of that. It will be more balanced. When I look at different industry technology or even the demographic, as you know, we should be more 40 in the US, 60 international versus the reverse on a unit basis, and we’re going to continue to expand.

Saket Kalia — Barclays — Analyst

Very helpful. Thanks guys.

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Hamza Fodderwala from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hamza Fodderwala — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Hey good evening guys. Thanks for taking my question. So I’ll keep it to one question. Natalie, since you alluded to inflation, I’m curious what NortonLifeLock is thinking about in terms of pricing on renewal, particularly into the next fiscal year. Thank you.

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

If you don’t mind, I’ll take it and I’ll step back a little bit in a broader context. First, as you know, we’ve acquired Avira. Our number one objective is to scale our cybersafety platform. And you’re going to see us continue to invest into the freemium model, expanding the freemium model to board security, expanding to other countries, and that’s our first point of entry, we would love that the five billion Internet users are all fully consciously protected from cybercriminality.

When it comes to then our ongoing prices, obviously, pricing structure and how do you upsell and move to a premium model have different structure. First, your price, as you know, as a promotion to get in the first time you get in. And then you have the renewal price at the normal MSRP that we have set. And then we’re tracking the dynamic of cost, inflation, competition in every country. It is a dynamic environment. It is a competitive environment. And so our pricing philosophy follows the value we provide to the members. As we continue to add new product and new value to that membership, then customers opt to higher level of membership, and that’s the whole business model that we have this time.

Hamza Fodderwala — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no more questions. I will turn the call back to Vincent Pilette, CEO, for closing remarks.

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

Why don’t we wait one minute to see if there’s nobody? Last time, there was no more question. We had, two minutes later, plenty of questions trying to get in. So let’s check one more time, operator, if you don’t mind.

Operator

Sure. [Operator Instructions]

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Well, we obviously are always, as management, very open and available for any questions our investors or analysts would have. We’ll have plenty of one-on-one sessions between now and the next few days. I do want to thank our shareholders that have overwhelmingly approved the issuance of shares to — for the acquisition or the merger with Avast. We see that as a vote of confidence, confidence into our strategy, confidence into the specific transaction, confidence into the Board and management. So, thank you, everyone, and we’ll be connecting very soon.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks].

Duration: 28 minutes

Call participants:

Mary Lai — Vice President-Investor Relations

Vincent Pilette — Chief Executive Officer

Natalie Derse — Chief Financial Officer

Saket Kalia — Barclays — Analyst

Hamza Fodderwala — Morgan Stanley — Analyst

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