Lamar Advertising Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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November 8, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Questions. In the course of this discussion, Lamar may make forward looking statements regarding the company, including statements about its future financial performance, strategic goals, plans and objectives, including with respect to the amount and timing of any distributions to stockholders and the impacts and effects of general economic conditions on the company's business, financial condition and results of operations. All forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond Lamar's control and which may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. Lamar has identified important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the company's Q3 2024 earnings release and its most recent annual report on Form 10 ks. Lamar refers you to those documents.

Operator

Lamar's Q3 2024 earnings release, which contains information required by Regulation G regarding certain non GAAP financial measures, was furnished to the SEC on Form 8 ks this morning and is available on the Investors section of Lamar's website, www.lamar.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sean Reilly. Mr. Reilly, you may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Britney. Good morning to all and welcome to Lamar's Q3 2024 earnings call. Business trends continue to be encouraging as we near year end. For the Q3, demand from local and regional advertisers remained robust and we saw particular strength from our programmatic sales channel, which helped offset broader weakness from our national advertising base. For the quarter, consolidated revenue grew 4% or 3.6% on an acquisition adjusted basis, the 14th straight quarter of growth for Lamar.

Speaker 1

Revenue increased across all products, billboards, transit, airport and logos and all operating regions. Expenses meanwhile ran a little bit hot increasing 5.4% on an acquisition adjusted basis versus the year earlier period. Recall that we had a tough comp as a result of some COVID relief grants we received in Q3 of 2023. We also saw some spikes in medical costs and in contract labor in this year's Q3 that contributed to the increase. Some of this was a simple matter of timing.

Speaker 1

The good news is that we see expense trends correcting in Q4 and Q4 revenue is pacing handily ahead of Q3 aided by record levels of political spend. As a result, as you saw, we have raised our guidance for full year AFFO per share to a range of $7.85 to $7.95 per share, which at the midpoint would be an increase of nearly 6% over 2023. For the full year, consolidated EBITDA margins should come in right around 47%. Back to Q3, in addition to political categories of particular strength were services, building and construction and government and nonprofit. All of these categories skew local.

Speaker 1

Some of the categories that were weaker, insurance and restaurants, tend to skew national. On a consolidated basis, our localregional revenue was up 4.9%, while national was off 2.9%. Our digital revenue grew by nearly 5% in the quarter with particular strength, as I mentioned, from our programmatic channel, where revenue increased over 70% from the year earlier quarter. We are continuing to see new customers in new categories such as consumer packaged goods and pharma in the programmatic out of home space. On a same store basis for large format billboard digital, revenue was up 2.1%.

Speaker 1

Our customers continue to appreciate the flexibility that digital provides. So after somewhat of a slowdown in deployment in 2024, our plan is to reaccelerate our rollout of new units for 2025 with an internal goal of 375 to 400 new digitals. 2024 has been a quiet year on the M and A front as we expected it would be. Deal flow however has begun to pick up and we anticipate much more activity for tuck in transactions in 2025. In short, I like how we are finishing 2024 and although it is too soon to make any firm predictions, I believe 2025 is shaping up to be another successful year.

Speaker 1

I'll leave it there for now and turn it over to Jay to walk you through some more numbers. Jay? Thanks, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We continue to experience solid top line growth in our portfolio during the Q3.

Speaker 1

Our billboard regions grew acquisition adjusted revenue in the low to mid single digits with the exception of the Gulf Coast, which is relatively flat, growing approximately 50 basis points. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $271,200,000 compared to $265,700,000 in 2023, which was an increase of 2.1% or 1.8% on an acquisition adjusted basis. Despite the growth in operating expenses, adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was strong at 48.1% and remains well above pre pandemic levels. Adjusted funds from operations totaled $220,700,000 in the 3rd quarter compared to $208,800,000 last year, an increase of 5.7%. Diluted AFFO per share increased 5.4% to $2.15 versus $2.04 in the Q3 of 2023.

Speaker 1

This quarter continued the solid AFFO growth we have experienced this year with short term interest rates stabilizing. We have also benefited from mid single digit growth on the top line during the 1st 9 months of the year. Local and regional sales grew for the 14th consecutive quarter, but softness in national sales continues to be a headwind to our overall revenue growth. In spite of the backdrop of the national business, we are encouraged by the resilience of local and regional sales, which accounted for approximately 79% of billboard revenue in the Q3. On the capital expenditure front, total spend for the quarter was $30,100,000 including $11,300,000 of maintenance CapEx.

Speaker 1

Through the 1st 3 quarters of the year, CapEx totaled $82,300,000 about $36,000,000 of which was maintenance. And for the full year, we anticipate total CapEx of $125,000,000 with maintenance comprising approximately $50,000,000 Last month, we extended the company's $250,000,000 AR securitization for 3 years and the facility now matures in October 2027. The company maintains a well laddered debt maturity schedule and we have no maturities until our $600,000,000 Term Loan B in February of 2027, with no bond maturities until February of 2028. Based on debt outstanding at quarter end, our weighted average interest rate was approximately 5%, with a weighted average debt maturity of 4 years. As defined under our credit facility, we ended the quarter with total leverage of 2.91x net debt to EBITDA, which remains amongst the lowest in the history of the company.

Speaker 1

Our secured debt leverage was 0.88x@quarterend, and we're comfortably in compliance with both our total debt incurrence and secured debt maintenance tests against covenants of 7x and 4.5x respectively. At the end of the quarter, we had approximately $451,000,000 in total liquidity comprised of $29,500,000 of cash on hand and $421,200,000 available under our revolving credit facility. Earlier in the quarter, we repaid the company's $350,000,000 term loan A using cash on hand and a draw on our revolving credit facility. We continue to monitor the debt capital markets, which have improved significantly, and we may take advantage of this favorable environment to issue new senior notes. The use of proceeds from an offering would be to reduce outstandings under the revolver and for general corporate purposes.

Speaker 1

In September, our Board of Directors approved the extension of our debt and equity repurchase programs, each for up to $250,000,000 While we do not anticipate activity under either program in the near term, maintaining both preserves our flexibility and is part of our corporate finance strategy. As Sean mentioned, this morning, we increased our full year AFFO guidance for the 2nd time this year. We now expect an AFFO range of $7.85 to $7.95 per share, an increase of $0.075 at the midpoint and up $0.155 from our original guidance at the beginning of the year. Full year cash interest in this morning's guidance totaled $166,000,000 And as I touched on earlier, maintenance CapEx is budgeted for $50,000,000 while cash taxes are projected to come in around $10,000,000 Finally, the company paid a cash dividend of $1.30 per share in each of the first and second quarters. In Q3, we increased the dividend to $1.40 per share, and management plans to recommend the same regular dividend subject to Board approval for the Q4 as well.

Speaker 1

In addition, and based on current expectations, we will likely recommend a special dividend at year end of approximately $0.20 per share, depending on the company's operating results. This special dividend, which also is subject to Board approval, will ensure we distribute 100% of our taxable income in line with our dividend policy. If both the regular and special dividends are approved, the result will be a full year cash dividend of $5.60 per share. Once again, we are pleased with the strength of our local and regional sales through the 1st 3 quarters as well as the momentum we saw in October's results and look forward to executing on our business plan for the balance of the year. I'll now turn the call back over to Sean.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jay. I'll touch on a few of the usual metrics before I open it up for questions. As Jay mentioned, across the country, our regional performance basically across the top and bottom lines was relatively uniform with the exception of the Gulf Coast, which showed a little bit of softness. Political was quite a bright spot both Q3 year to date. At almost $15,000,000 year to date through Q3, we're setting records for political.

Speaker 1

Notably, October was also a record for Lamar for political. It meant in Q3 political growth of a little less than 1% for our overall growth. So that was the relative contribution of political in Q3. Other gains in Q3 were primarily rate driven as we are hovering around peak occupancy year to date. In terms of our digital count, we now have 4,892 digital units in the air as of the close of Q3.

Speaker 1

That was an increase of 50 units over Q2 of 2024 and an increase year to date over 2023 of 133 units. In terms of SameBoard, I mentioned this is SameBoard large format billboard only. I mentioned the growth there was 2.1% year to date. That number is 2.5%. And again, if you take our overall digital footprint including what we put up this year and acquired and what we have in transit and airports, as a whole, digital was up 5% in Q3.

Speaker 1

In terms of local, regional, national programmatic share, as Jay mentioned, local regional in Q3 was approximately 79% with NationalProgrammatic coming in at about 21%. That compares to roughly 78%, 22% year to date 2023. In terms of acquisitions, we closed about 17 acquisitions for total purchase price of $31,000,000 and we acquired approximately 90 new faces through that activity. As I mentioned, we paired back our M and A activity for 2024 a tad. You'll see that accelerate as we move into 2025.

Speaker 1

And then finally, categories of relative strength. As I mentioned, services was up 16%, government and non profit was up 17% and building and construction services was up 29%. Categories of relative weakness, as I mentioned, insurance down about 10% and restaurants down about 2.4%. All right, Brittany, we will now open it up for questions.

Operator

Our first question will come from Cameron McVeigh with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good morning.

Speaker 1

Good morning, Chris. Hey, guys.

Speaker 2

Just curious as you look ahead into 2025, how you're thinking about the growth opportunity and the potential growth drivers?

Speaker 1

Certainly, we're going to be looking to programmatic to be a contributor there. And we're also looking for a rebound in national. Some of that is going to be easy comps. I hate to use that as a reason why we're going to do better in national, but it's the math of that. And again, we're seeing some customers come into our book through programmatic that have traditionally not been big players in out of home consumer packaged goods and pharma.

Speaker 1

So we're certainly looking to that.

Speaker 2

Great. And then secondly, I guess just from an industry perspective, could you discuss the current state of programmatic ad spend in out of home and the long term industry impact?

Speaker 1

Sure. As you're aware, when talking about Lamar in particular, we limit our programmatic channel to national customers and we limit it to those buying agencies that are digital specialists, I. E, they only buy programmatically. And that universe of buyers is growing and that's why our programmatic book is growing. And certainly when you hear from the other industry players, you'll hear the same thing.

Speaker 1

Where we see this going, number 1, we see the general digital pot of advertising growing much faster than the traditional pot of advertising. And those two pots are actually probably going to merge in 3 to 5 years and so you'll just talk about ad spend and you won't really break it out that way, which leads us to the conclusion that programmatic is going to be even more important as that channel is opened up to more, I would call, traditional ad players. And then finally, what we see happening is opening up that channel to our local book, our local and regional book. And then that's when it becomes really exciting. So it's going to take us 3 to 5 years to get there.

Speaker 1

And but when we do, you'll see a whole lot of ad dollars going through that channel. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jason Van Zet with Citi. Your line is now

Speaker 3

open. I just had two questions. One, it was nice to see the AFFO guide move up, as you said, about 2% from where we started at the beginning of the year. But I noticed that the earnings number fell about 1% over that same period. So I was just wondering, could you just tease out sort of the dichotomy between the earnings and AFFO?

Speaker 3

And then my second question is on programmatic. I may be misremembering, but when programmatic first started, I would almost characterize your tone as somewhat cautious on it just because of the negative margin implications and now you seem less concerned with that. And I don't know if that's just because the quantum of programmatic dollars are so huge, but it just makes sense or if the margin concerns you had early on are just no longer applicable because of some shift in the industry? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. Hey, Jason. I'll hit the programmatic question and I'll turn the net income question over to Jay. So yes, programmatic margins, it is a fact that today the cost of a programmatic sale runs about 10% and our overall cost of sales, what we pay our account executives and what we pay our national account managers runs about 6%, right. So you got about a 4% delta there.

Speaker 1

Now where do we see that going? Number 1, we get a slightly higher CPM through the programmatic channel and our customers are willing to pay that higher CPM because they get a richer data set that helps prove out the effectiveness of their campaign. So that little bit of extra expense is offset by a higher CPM. The other thing that we see happening is it's 10% for that channel when we have $40,000,000 going through it. But when we have $240,000,000 going through it, we're going to see that cost go down.

Speaker 1

So we're looking at volume to bring that cost down. Good morning, Jason. On the net income question, it's our stock compensation plan, which as you know is non cash. If you look at where our stock is trading now, it's significantly higher than it was at this time last year. And our plan is based around fixed share.

Speaker 1

So fluctuations in stock price can really impact the value there. The other contributor on the stock compensation plan is simply where we're tracking against budget. We're having a much better year than last year. So our payout on a percentage basis is going to be higher. So you put those two things together and that's why you see the increase in the stock compensation.

Speaker 3

That's super helpful. Thank you both.

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Daniel Ossai with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 4

On political, if I may, I think you mentioned the political contribution as $50,000,000 year to date and seeing a record as of now. I guess, can you help us think about the political contribution for Q4? And then maybe relatedly, we saw TV broadcasters report this week and they collectively talked about their core ads being down somewhere between mid single digit to high single digit from political crowd out. So do you think you picked up any of those dollars or did those advertisers completely drop out of the market? It doesn't seem apparent in your results that maybe you benefited from crowd out in the quarter, but anything you can add there?

Speaker 1

We lost you there at the beginning of the question, but I'll just hit what I heard. So political, as I mentioned, was is about $15,000,000 year to date. In Q4, it's going to be about that number, give or take. So we will end the year close to $30,000,000 total in terms of political. So that will give you a sense for where it's going to land in Q4.

Speaker 1

We can't measure it in terms of TV political crowding out their traditional spend and how much of that comes our way. But we know some of it does. And so we're going to have you can just sort of see it in the growth in our book. So I think that's what I heard your question to be, whether or not we pick up some of those dollars. And again, I can't measure it, but anecdotally know that it happens.

Speaker 4

That's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just one more if I may on 25. So we've done some work on the financial benefits from digital conversion, but can you talk about the potential revenue uplift that you might expect from adding almost twice as many digital billboards next year as you did this year?

Speaker 1

Sure. I'll just do it based on sort of unit economics, right? So I'll make I'll just illustrate one and then you can extrapolate. So when we take down a static unit, on average it's doing about 3,000 a month. And you replace that with a digital unit that costs you a little over $200,000 to make the conversion and your revenue lift is give or take 5 or 6 times.

Speaker 1

So you're going to do something in the neighborhood of 15,000 a month on that board now. So that's sort of the unit economics of conversion. And it's been very gratifying for us to see that those economics have held up over the decades that we've been doing this. It's been remarkably stable that return in those unit economics. Interestingly from the advertisers point of view, the as I mentioned, they're paying about $3,000 for the space for a static unit, but they then have to buy the substrate, right, they have to buy the vinyl and amortize that cost over the length of their contract.

Speaker 1

When they move over to a digital unit, they're paying about the same absolute dollars. They're paying about $3,000 for the slot that they occupy, but they don't have to pay the production And they can of course change their copy from their desktop at their will. And that flexibility is why they're willing to share the space with other advertisers. So their absolute dollars in terms of the cost of the space stays about the same. Their cost per 1,000 impressions goes up.

Speaker 1

So that's the economics of a digital conversion both from our point of view and from our customers' point of view. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from David Krowinski with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Hey, this is Cascada on for David. Two questions. 1, you'd mentioned last quarter gaining share in programmatic due to better metrics in large format. I just want to ask if you could provide some more color on how you're able to measure these KPIs and prove them out to marketers and how well known this is or if there's more share more room to take share as this the data increases and education continues? And then secondly, I wanted to ask if you could provide any color on what kind of opportunities you're looking at for M and A going into 'twenty five, if there's any specific geographies or capabilities you're willing to build out?

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Sure. I'll hit the M and A question first. We kind of purposely slowed down a little bit this year. We were catching our breath and we were preparing our balance sheet. And as you know, we retired our Term A loan.

Speaker 1

And all that work has been done. And it's been incredibly fruitful in terms of where our balance sheet is. As a matter of fact, when we close the books on 2024, our leverage as measured by our bank covenants is going to be less than 3 for the first time in the company's history. So we're really happy about the work we did there and part of that was slowing down the M and A activity this year. So that said going into next year, we see it picking up.

Speaker 1

And without talking about specific transactions, the first level of activity is going to be the fill in activity that we're quite frankly very good at. I mean if you look at our footprint, we're nationwide and basically everywhere. So almost any M and A activity for us is going to be fill in where we just absorb the inventory into our existing operations and it's a very predictable exercise. We're very, very good at it. And at the end of the day, it's not really geographic specific.

Speaker 1

We can absorb anywhere inventory basically anywhere in the country and any region in the country. So yes, we're going to be very active next year and we're looking forward to what that brings to our footprint and to our customers and quite frankly enhancing our margins. The question on what was the other one?

Speaker 5

What was the other question? The other question yes, yes, the other question I had was, you'd mentioned gaining share in programmatic to the better metrics in large format. And so I wanted to ask if you could provide more color on how you're able to measure those KPIs and how well known is that? Yes, yes.

Speaker 1

Sure. So it's increasingly well known in the industry. There are 3rd party data providers that can do attribution analysis and measure foot traffic and lift as part of a campaign. Quite frankly, there are more of those 3rd party data providers today than there have ever been. So it's going to be an increasingly good thing for the industry.

Speaker 1

So and again our programmatic customers are willing to pay a slightly higher CPM because it is included in their buy by the programmatic enablers, folks like Vistar and the like who are plugged into our pipes and enable us to deliver a programmatic buy to those digital buyers. So that's essentially what's going on out there and it's increasing as more third party data providers come to the floor.

Speaker 5

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you guys so much.

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our next question from Lance Vitesseyan, I apologize, from T. D. Cowen. Your line is now open.

Operator

Lance, your line is now open. Please check your mute function.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Thank you very much. You called out Gulf Coast was a drag on results. Any thoughts as to why? And are you seeing that come back in the Q4?

Speaker 6

I'm wondering if the weakness was more or less pronounced at either the beginning or the end of the quarter? Was it evenly distributed? What's going on there?

Speaker 1

Every now and again, you'll have a region that just is catching its breath and maybe not the local economies aren't as robust as what's going on elsewhere. So for us, the Gulf Coast is essentially Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama It's the basic Gulf Coast region. And I don't think there's anything to be read into that really. It's just things might just be have been a little bit softer there and they'll come back. I'd also add Lance that in Q3 of last year, the Gulf Coast outperformed the broader portfolio.

Speaker 1

So a little bit of a headwind there from a year over year comp. Yes, they had tougher comp in some of the other places.

Speaker 6

Got you. And then just on the M and A outlook, could you talk a little bit about why you're seeing it picking up? Is it a function of interest rates having stabilized beginning to come down? Or is it the improving outlook for the real economy? Is it people kind of buying in more to the well, I'm just wondering what's driving that trend or was this just really more driven by your internal decisions to take a pause?

Speaker 1

There was certainly a little bit of that Lance in terms of when Lamar decides to catch its breath, everybody sort of slows down a little bit and then when we say look the checkbook is open, come talk to us. Keep in mind a lot of our M and A activity is internally generated. These are either entrepreneurs or family, mom and pop operations that have been around for a couple of decades. We know them well and when they decide to sell they give us a call, right? So some of it's just that and then some of it is just I think to your other point as interest rates start falling, then activity picks up and we're in a different interest rate cycle.

Speaker 1

So I think those two things will make for an active year next year.

Speaker 6

You mentioned tuck ins a couple of times, but what about a potentially larger transaction something like an Adams or a Link, would you consider or would you consider those tuck ins?

Speaker 1

Certainly, there's a measure of tuck in in both of those. We don't obviously control what those guys are going to do. That's one of those things that's more event driven than sort of the day in, day out tuck in acquisition activity that we engage in. So yes, that would be sort of a stay tuned.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Thank

Operator

you. And we have no further questions in the queue. I will turn the program back over to Sean Reilly for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Well, thank you, Brittany, and thank you all for your interest in Lamar, and we look forward to talking with you again as we turn the page into 2025. Thank you all.

Operator

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time and have a wonderful day.

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Key Takeaways

  • For Q3, consolidated revenue grew 4% (3.6% acquisition-adjusted) with strong local/regional advertiser demand and programmatic sales offsetting national weakness.
  • Operating expenses rose 5.4% on an acquisition-adjusted basis due to tough COVID relief comps, medical cost spikes and contract labor, but management expects expense trends to improve in Q4.
  • The company raised full-year AFFO per share guidance to $7.85 – $7.95, representing nearly 6% growth at midpoint, and projects consolidated EBITDA margins around 47% for 2024.
  • Digital revenue increased by nearly 5%, led by a >70% gain in programmatic sales, and Lamar plans to accelerate its digital rollout with an internal goal of 375 – 400 new displays in 2025.
  • M&A activity was muted in 2024 as part of balance sheet strengthening, but deal flow is picking up and management expects increased tuck-in transactions in 2025.
A.I. generated. May contain errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Lamar Advertising Q3 2024
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