Lamar Advertising Co (LAMR) 2006 Q1 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • We now have the Kevin Reilly, Sean Reilly, and Keith Istre conference. Please be aware that each of your lines is on a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of the Company's presentation, we will open the floor for questions. At that time, instructions will be given for the procedure to follow if you would like to ask a question.

  • In the course of this discussion, Lamar may make forward-looking statements about the Company, including statements about its future financial performance and condition, operational plans, and strategies and market opportunities. Lamar has identified important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in this call, and the Company's report on Form 10-K and 10-Q and the registration statement Lamar has filed with the SEC. Lamar refers you to those documents.

  • Lamar's first quarter earnings release, which contains the information required by regulation G, with respect to certain non-GAAP financial measures included therein, was furnished to the SEC on a Form 8-K this morning, and is available on Lamar's Website, www.lamar.com.

  • I would now like to turn the conference over to Kevin Reilly. Mr. Reilly, you may begin.

  • - CEO

  • I would like to welcome all our shareholders and friends to our Q1 conference call. As is our custom, we'll make a few brief comments and then turn over the call for Q&A. As we mentioned at the beginning of the year, we expect '06 for the rest of the year, demand for our space to be reasonably strong, with perhaps the exception of Michigan and Ohio, which has been slightly affected by the automotive industry.

  • On the operating leverage side, we had mentioned at the beginning of the year that we expect it to be weak the first half of the year, and then pick up in the second half of the year. Keith will give you some of the particulars regarding the expenses for the first half of the year.

  • On the digital front, we are very, very pleased with our progress there, we've decided to go ahead, now that we've had some experience regarding revenue associated with our deployments, that we will share some of the revenue figures with you on this call and Sean will cover that.

  • With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Keith Istre, the CFO.

  • - CFO

  • Thank you Kevin. Just to highlight a few of the high points, in the press release, we ended up the quarter at total net revenue from all operations at $253 million. We had guided to somewhere in the upper 240s on the last call. Consolidated EBITDA was $102 million, and the consolidated EBITDA margins were 40.2 for the quarter, that's down about a point over last year's quarter, and that is being directly affected by the higher expenses that we reported in the press release.

  • As Kevin just mentioned, for the first half of the year, expenses were, at least for the second quarter, expenses should probably, the direct and G&A operating before corporate will probably come in in the 6% range, and then in the back half, we expect our comps to be easier on the expense side, due to some programs that we had initiated in the back half of '05, that we will be coming up and comping against. And in the press release, in the body, you can see some of the items that we listed that did have an impact on the expense growth and, of course, we had talked about those on the last call going into a little more detail.

  • On the free cash flow side, also in the body of the press release, you can see that our free cash flow was down right at 50% for the quarter, first quarter of '06 over '05. $29 million for Q1 '06 versus approximately $57 million, and again in the press release, we noted that we spent about $18 million in CapEx on digital, and in reconstructing some of the hurricane damage that we had from last fall's hurricanes, that was about an extra $7 million that went into that effort. That effort is pretty much over and done with, and looking at the second quarter, there may be a few invoices straggling in, but for the most part, we're back to where we were prior to Katrina.

  • On the digital, Sean will go into more detail about this, but since we're talking about the CapEx in the first quarter, as of today, we have 117 digital units in the ground in 43 markets. On the last call, I believe we said we had 73 in 26 markets. So that rollout is going pretty well.

  • On the guidance side for Q2, we're guiding to approximately 6%, and I think $284 million in net revenue, and that includes Obie and all operating revenue entities, you know, for the past year we've kept Obie out of the mix, in any case, we've had them for 12 full months now, and they will be accounted for on a pro forma basis as everything else is.

  • Our leverage has gone up, our debt leverage has gone up by a couple hundred million, this is primarily due to the stock buyback that we put in place last year. With our converts included, we're about 3.7 times to trailing EBITDA, and without the converts, we're at about 3.1 times. We were down in the upper 2s on the last call, the converts are in the money as we speak. Their strike price is about $51.25.

  • On the CapEx side, you saw we spent $46 million in Q1. Let me just tick down how that is accounted for along our various divisions. We spent $10 million on traditional billboards, on traditional static units, about half of that was maintenance, and the other half was for new units. We spent $18 million on digital, as I'd mentioned earlier, we spent $7 million on repairing the storm damage, again, that we had talked about, real estate, now this is not easements, this is either raw land or construction of some new operating offices in some of our markets, we spent $7 million in the quarter, operating equipment was $2 million, and our logos was $1.5 million. So that's how the $46 million is spread out.

  • We told you on the last call that we estimated we would spend about $110 million in CapEx for '06 outside of digital, and at that time we did not give a number for digital. We were at an Investor Conference in March, and we did pass out our estimate of about $50 million that we will spend in '06 on digital, $18 million, of course, was in the first quarter, and the remainder of that would be spread out over the next three quarters.

  • With that, I'll turn it over to Sean, and let him give you some color on business.

  • - CEO

  • Sure, thanks, Keith. And before I get into the digital conversation, I wanted to hit some of the familiar operating matrix that we give out during the call. Let me start with occupancy.

  • Occupancy is basically running flat quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year. So Q1 '05 posters were at 61%. Q1 '06, poster occupancies running 62%. We've had 1 point improvement in posters, bulletins over the same time horizon has remained flat at 77%, for both Q1 '05 and Q1 '06. So you can see we're getting the gains in organic growth through rate, on the poster side, rates are up 5% Q1 '06 over Q1 '05. And on the bulletin side, rates are up 9% Q1 '06 over Q1 '05.

  • In terms of national versus local sales, local is more robust than national. I think that conforms with what you've heard from some of our colleagues in the outdoor group, Clear Channel and Viacom, the first and early parts of the second quarter have not been stellar on the national side, but the local side has been extremely strong. Q1 '05, our mix of business was 81% local, 16% national, and 3% regional. Q1 '06, it's 81% local, 15% national, and 4% regional. So we're down 1% on the national, a little bit reflective of that environment. We do think given what's working, and what we're hearing out there on the national side, that it's going to get better in the back half.

  • In terms of categories of business, no earth-shattering news there. We have had more relative strength in Real Estate and Development companies, and Hospitals and Healthcare, in terms of book of business, but other than that, it's a familiar picture. Restaurants are 10% of our book, Automotive 9%, Retail is 9%, Real Estate is 9%, Hospitals at 7%, and that's your top five or six categories.

  • In terms of acquisitions, year-to-date, we've closed 20 transactions for a total purchase price of $70.2 million, and you can see that that pace is sort of what we've grown used to over the last couple of years. Let me talk digital real quick.

  • We're very excited about how we're progressing on the digital front. For those of you that have been following us for a while, you know we put these up in a variety of different settings and formats, testing the model in small markets and large markets with bulletins, with posters, in highly competitive markets, and the like. What we've discovered is it's a robust business model wherever we put them up. To kind of give you a little color, and we with don't want to glom on to one month, but we do have April behind us.

  • Keeping in mind that these things are going up every month, and every month looks different. But just to give you a snapshot of what it looked like in April, our net billing from digital units in April was $1,232,000, that compares to 298,000 last April, same time. If you take what those units billed as static units, they billed $149,000. So you can see that with 94 units up in a variety of different settings, we're still getting that nice digital multiplier of 5, 6, 7, 8X over what a static unit would get. So with that as a backdrop, I'll open it up for questions.

  • Operator

  • At this time, we'll open the floor for questions.

  • Operator

  • [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Our first question comes from James Dix with Deutsche bank.

  • - Analyst

  • Good afternoon, gentleman. A couple questions. First, just in terms of your categories of business, are there any categories which you see just going forward showing particular signs of strength, and conversely, any which seem to be pushing business back, or pulling it forward or, you know, adjusting their campaigns at all, just in terms of the demand that they're showing you.

  • And then, I guess, a couple things on digital, I guess, for Sean. What's the basic local/national mix of revenue for the digital displays? If you have that number, is that trending any different from your static displays? I'd just be curious as to what you're seeing there.

  • And for the longer term, how would you rank the gating factors for your rollout of digital among the various potential things, regulation, or the cost of the boards, site selection, things like that, just so we could understand a little better what's regulating the pace of the rollout.

  • - CEO

  • All right, sure. Let me hit the categories of business first. No monumental moves in terms of categories. I guess of note, real estate and developers are up 2 percentage points in the categories of business. Q1 '05, they were 7% of our book, and Q1 '06, they're 9%. So I'd see that as a mover up.

  • In terms of softer parts of the book, hotel/motel is down from 7% last year, to 6% this year. Restaurants have ticked down a point from 11% last year to 10% this year. I think that is probably skewed by the McDonald's buy of last year, so I wouldn't read too much into that. And as a matter of fact, I wouldn't read too much into any of the moves.

  • When we look nationally, as I mentioned, it's not as robust, but you might be able to just point at one wireless player who backed off in the beginning of the year, and will be coming back in the back half of the year. With the exception of one customer, Automotive is give or take where it was, Wireless is give or take where it was. So I wouldn't read too much into that.

  • On the digital front, virtually every customer is local. We sell, because we do not have a national footprint yet, national buyers, while they're watching it, have not yet stepped in and played. I think that day is coming, as Clear Channel gets more successful with theirs, as we roll out more, and can offer a national advertiser a nationwide footprint, I think you'll see that change around a little bit. But right now, it's virtually 100% local. James, what was the other part of your question?

  • - Analyst

  • Just longer-term on the digital, Sean, what do you see the gating factors for the rollout.

  • - CEO

  • Let me cover that, Sean. Go ahead, Kevin. I only see two gating issues, one is will the customers continue to pay what they've been paying, and two, the regulatory environment. Can we get these things out? Is this the easy first run and we're going to be phenomenally successful for two years, and then we hit the wall.

  • All the other issues associated with this we feel are not significant business risks, i.e., the technology, the efficacy, the ability of the sales force to explain it to the customer. All of those things seem to be falling in place. So there are two things that concern us, and they're big, and there are still unknowns. But we're happy with the backbone that we're developing, which is scalable, and we're extremely happy with the quality of the units that are being delivered to us, by Yesco and Daktronics.

  • - Analyst

  • Thanks very much.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from Marci Ryvicker, Wachovia Securities.

  • - Analyst

  • Thanks. Staying with the digital rollout, just wanted to understand your philosophy a little bit better, because it seems like you guys are the most aggressive among the outdoor groups, in terms of the number of boards, yet we know the costs continue to come down, and in listening to Daktronics conference calls, they are working on the value proposition of the boards, so would it be worth waiting for a faster rollout to get a better return as the costs of the boards come down.

  • And my second question on digital, how feasible is it for you to do digital networks across your markets, like Clear Channel is doing? Is this something that is more profitable for a larger market group, or would this be profitable for someone of your size?

  • - CEO

  • Well, why wait for the cost to come down when we can invest in our core business and generate superior returns right now. So lower costs in the future, although we hope for them, and it will make things more attractive for us and for our customers, there's no reason to wait.

  • The second thing regarding networks, we do think networks are more powerful than one-offs, and we've enjoyed in a few markets where we've been able to put together networks in the DMA, we've found that the sales proposition is a very compelling one. And that is, you can reach pretty much everybody, a good representational sample of the population in the DMA, and you can do it by changing your message whenever you want, and with no production charges. And that's pretty much the value proposition. And right now, it seems to be a compelling one with our customers. If I can just follow on. We run networks, Marci, and I don't know whether you meant networking within a DMA, which we're doing, and what we're finding is the incremental increase over what the boards got analog, as compared to what they get digital is more attractive than a one-off. It's an 8, 9X incremental improvement as opposed to a 5, 6, 7X incremental improvement. We're doing that within a DMA, we're not doing it across DMAs.

  • - Analyst

  • How many do you have, are you able to tell us? well, I can tell you we're just burning one here in Baton Rouge, that's looks real good. I'm looking at it right now as a matter of fact, it's across the street from our corporate headquarters, and it's six units that are networked, and we've presold it. We've got networks in Vegas, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati.

  • - CFO

  • Toledo.

  • - CEO

  • Toledo, Mobile. And unquestionably it's a more powerful vehicle than a single sign.

  • - Analyst

  • Great, thank you.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from Chris Ensley with Bear Stearns.

  • - Analyst

  • Morning, a couple questions on your business trends. Within the quarter, some of your TV and radio brethren saw the business of the quarter start off slower in April and pick up a little bit. I wonder if you're seeing similar? And then Clear Channel outdoor was talking about some business at the start of the quarter which pushed back into 2Q and 3Q, sorry, about 3Q and perhaps even 4Q, so I was wondering if you had seen the same.

  • - CFO

  • They were referring to national businesses, which is a little bit greater percentage of their book than ours, so we don't see quite as much volatility, but Sean did mention that broadly, he expects business on the national front to be better on the back half than in the front half.

  • - CEO

  • Yes, we did experience that little bitty hiccup on the national side in April, but it appears to be a blip, not a trend.

  • - Analyst

  • For the most part, it's pretty consistent throughout the quarter?

  • - CEO

  • In terms of national business, it's not as consistent. In terms of local business, it's very steady.

  • - Analyst

  • Just one quick follow up. Last year, it was your western region that had the highest sellouts, and you're getting probably the highest price increases as well. Have other regions kind of picked up the slack now, or is it still being led by your western markets?

  • - CEO

  • Western is still extremely strong, but we feel real good about what's going on in the northeast as we progress through the year, down through the Coastal Carolinas into the Coastal southeastern areas are looking good. As Kevin mentions from the outset, it seems to be a little bit sluggish in the Midwest, upper Midwest.

  • - Analyst

  • Great, thank you very much.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Jason Helfstein with CIBC World Markets.

  • - Analyst

  • Sorry about that. Thanks, two questions. Sean, if you can just repeat those, because I cut out for a sec, repeat those statistics, the one million, whatever it was last year, and then I had a follow up.

  • - CEO

  • Sure, what I'm trying to give you a snapshot is of digital revenue April over April, '05, '06. So the total April revenues for digital, and this is net not gross, for April '06 was $1,232,000. Last year, same time, our digital net revenue was $298,000.

  • - Analyst

  • And then the comparison?

  • - CEO

  • The comparison that I thought was also relevant, was what did those units do when they were analoged? And last April, those analog units did $149,000 in billing.

  • - Analyst

  • That's what I wanted to make sure I heard, that's like 8 to 9 times, not even 5 or 6, but 8 to 9. Okay so, I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting, and you guys hit upon, and maybe Kevin, if you could talk about this some more. I think a lot of us thought when we first heard about digital, was hey, bigger markets would be able to justify the expenses of digital, but clearly what you guys have proven is that not only can you make this work in medium and small markets, but for national advertisers, it's not, until it becomes Top 25, Top 30 markets, it's not a viable solution, so effectively it becomes a terrific local tool.

  • So as a result of that, have you guys figured that we're just going to see based on the orders that you're putting into Daktronics and Yesco, that you are their primary buyer to these things? Because it's going to take the other companies who do the top markets a while to get the Top 20 markets out, and then they can sell to national. Talk a little bit more, you have a different perspective because you are selling this to local advertisers, because a lot of us thought this would largely be a national-driven product.

  • - CEO

  • Well, our philosophy of where the business comes from, it is a higher CPM than our traditional product. Our traditional product has a $3 or $4 cost/1000 impression, this one runs, depending on the market and whether it's networked or one-off, this one runs 5 to 8, 9, even in some cases, $11 cost/1000 impressions.

  • So you are dealing with an advertiser that has a larger budget. The way we view the strength of this, is that if you're delivering a circulation that is comparative to the local newspaper that has a cost/1000 impression of about a third of the local newspaper, then you've got a very compelling value proposition for the larger local advertiser.

  • And also, regional advertisers. And so, our view of the world is that this doesn't have to be a national platform to be successful, that what you're really creating is a better local advertising vehicle that competes head up with the strength of the newspaper. Here it is. You can change the message whenever you want as many times as you want, with no production charges. Yes. And that's a [expletive] of a value proposition for a local advertiser.

  • - Analyst

  • And a last question for Keith, are there any increased expenses in the first half due to the digital initiative that would have started last year in the back half, trickle into this year in the first half, but then the comp goes away in the back half of this year?

  • - CFO

  • Yes, there is. We have a team of folks that we hired here at corporate, that will be responsible for all of the transmission and review of the digital content to the units in the field, network operating center, and we plan on staffing that and having it up and running 24/7, as of right now, 365 days a year.

  • - CEO

  • And in this regard, we're a tad different from what clear channel is doing. We run and control all of our units nationwide from a single network operating center here. Clear Channel has a slightly different backbone approach. I think they're going to graduate over to something that looks more like ours as they get more units out. And building that backbone has cost some money.

  • - Analyst

  • And Keith, can you quantify just what the impact is perhaps over those four quarters on the OpEx?

  • - CFO

  • I can't, because I'm not sure how many folks, last year, with only 17 units, we had two people that were responsible for that process, and now we've developed a new software component that we can change the message instantly on every unit in the country from here, and I know that that department is in the process of staffing up. They are looking for a few more people to add on. I think we'll know the answer to that better at the end of the second quarter. I think the expenses for the first quarter were about 150,000.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks. And what you guys are doing, this is pretty exciting stuff. Thanks.

  • - CEO

  • Thanks.

  • Operator

  • Next question comes from Laraine Mancini with Merrill Lynch.

  • - Analyst

  • A couple questions for you. At the end of the year last year, or at the end of your forth quarter results, you indicated you'd like to triple the number of digital boards, it looks like you're on-track to do even more than that, do you have a target level for this year?

  • Second, your corporate was $10 million first quarter which was higher than last year's run rate of about $9 million. Is there something in these numbers in 4Q or 1Q, or is that a good run rate? And this third, how high do you think it's reasonable to lever Lamar to do both digital implementation and stock buybacks?

  • - CFO

  • Let me answer the question on the corporate, yes, I think $10 million is a reasonable run rate for the next three quarters. And part of that is the operating folks that we're adding here on the digital. We have some MIS initiatives that we've undertaken that we've had to bring on some additional staff. All we are up here is people, and basically the only increase that you generally have is once a year everybody gets a cost of living, and/or a merit raise. And it's just adding bodies to handle the initiatives that we've put in place. Sean, do you want to--?

  • - CEO

  • On the number of units, we're comfortable where we said we'd be, somewhere north of 200 by the year end.

  • - Analyst

  • And stock buybacks?

  • - CFO

  • We've run our business between 4 and 6.

  • - Analyst

  • 4 and 6.

  • - CFO

  • And so, that should give you an indication as to how we feel about our capital structure.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - CFO

  • And we're out there at 210, but I think your instincts are right, we're looking forward to beating that number.

  • - Analyst

  • Great. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Barton Crockett with J.P. Morgan.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, great. Thank you. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of context, in terms of the revenue that you reported for April. What would be the ongoing operational expense attached to that? In other words, we've all been kind of guessing at 60 to 70% EBITDA margin, and is that basically what you were seeing in April for digital?

  • And then secondly, as we look to the ramp-up and more boards, I hear what you said before, you're looking to beat the number that you put out for this year, you talked in the past about maybe 1000 by 2010, it sounds like you might feel like you could do better than that at this point, and maybe it's a bit early to say, but as we move towards many, many more boards, is there anything to suggest to us, that the revenue per board situation will change meaningfully from what we see now?

  • Are there some break points where maybe it should step down, or do we not really hit that until some time after maybe 1,000 board deployments. So some context there would be helpful. Thank you.

  • - CEO

  • We don't know about whether we're going to be able to maintain those CPMs or not. What we do know, there's a lot more volatility associated with, the revenue volatility is much greater associated with these digital units. Now, you and everybody else, and even Keith, we've layered in 1,000 units. And it's a nice addition to our core business, but it's, at a thousand units, it doesn't really move the needle that much.

  • So our hope by 2010 that we could be able to do significantly better than that so that we can, if it proves out and the customers are still excited about it, we would like to push this thing as hard as we possibly can. At what point do we start cannibalizing our existing business, creating a lot of excess capacity in the marketplace, we don't know. What was the other question?

  • - Analyst

  • And then in terms of the margins on the revenues in April, can you give us any guidance there on what --?

  • - CEO

  • I wouldn't look at April, you threw out the incremental margins we're thinking about.

  • - CFO

  • Yes, you got it right.

  • - CEO

  • So isolating April is not going to do you any good because Keith mentioned that we've hired all these fantastic propeller heads that are writing software, and we're just doing a lot of great things around the office, trying to make sure that this thing is scalable. So looking at April wouldn't be that useful.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, that's great. Thanks a lot.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Gordon Hodge with Thomas Weisel Partners.

  • - Analyst

  • Just a couple questions. One is on digital. Sean, I was just want to make sure I was clear on the numbers. So you did $1.2 million this year on the boards in April, you did 298 last year on digital, which I assume is a subset of the boards you now have, and then the 149,000, I mean should I be adding the 149 and 298 to get a comparison, or is it, I wasn't quite clear how to compare those two numbers.

  • - CEO

  • I'm going to ask Keith and you're going to hear in realtime as I hear. The 149 was the static units that we took down that were up last April, and replaced them with digital units.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, but did you --

  • - CEO

  • Apples to apples, this is what would have been --

  • - CFO

  • Yes, the 1.83 million net is was what was added in the first quarter, I mean, in the month of April.

  • - Analyst

  • So the 1.83 million is what we should be looking at.

  • - CFO

  • Right. Over last April. That's taking out the net revenue that we had generated from the statics.

  • - Analyst

  • So a little over 7X the revenue?

  • - CEO

  • Yes.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, perfect, great. And are you putting these up on leased land yet, or are you still rolling these out on your own property primarily, and curious if you're bumping into Clear Channel in any of the markets yet?

  • - CEO

  • No, we're not. We're competing against clear with digital in Las Vegas.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, Vegas.

  • - CEO

  • And we're hoping that we're both successful there. On the real estate front, we've got a couple of things going on. We're going long in our lease portfolio, because we're just bullish about our business in general. And that's aside from digital.

  • - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • - CEO

  • And because of the cost of the improvement that we're putting on leased and owned property, if it's a leased property, than the lease arrangement has to be more perfected, than the arrangement that you would have with a structure that say, only cost $35,000.

  • - Analyst

  • So you're going back and cutting --

  • - CEO

  • So the good news is, it's a mixed bag. Some of the digital is new locations, some of it is owned real estate, some of it is existing leases, where we've extended the terms of the lease, to make sure that we get an opportunity to protect the value of the improvement that we put on the leasehold.

  • - Analyst

  • Excellent. One last question. Keith, the pro formas for Q2, does that now include Obie?

  • - CFO

  • Yes, we're through --

  • - Analyst

  • Through the comps on that. And it looked like they they had strong growth in the quarter, any comment on what was driving that?

  • - CFO

  • -- putting the amount of the herd--. They did well.

  • - CEO

  • We are pleased with the well Obie has been integrated. We're pleased with their performance. That business, the transit business tends to be a little bit more volatile than our core business. So we think at the end of the day they're going to come in with about the same profile on the top line as our core billboard business. The downside in transit and really the logo business for that matter is that when you renew these franchises, you get a pop in your operating expenses, because of the increased payments to whoever awards the franchise.

  • - Analyst

  • Yes, okay.

  • - CEO

  • One way to look at Lamar's portfolio, if you take our logo businesses and our transit businesses together, they do about $100 million in net revenue, and they do about $45 million operating income, and they are comprised of about 100 different agreements. So it's a very large portfolio of transit and logo agreements, so that makes us feel more comfortable about that renewal risk.

  • - Analyst

  • Sounds good.

  • - CFO

  • That's also part of the increase in expenses, Gordon, on both of those divisions. They've seen some creep-up in their renewal payments to the state, or the municipalities, as these contracts roll off and are renewed.

  • - Analyst

  • Got it. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Terry O'Conner with Cedar Creek.

  • - Analyst

  • Hi, guys. A couple things. Apparently you did not mention the real estate procurement, extending leases as a gating factor again, Kevin. That had been one of the key things you wanted to accomplish. Are you getting more traction there, are you feeling more comfortable you can move the boards if you can't get the leases you want. Why didn't you mention that again?

  • - CEO

  • Are you referring to --

  • - Analyst

  • Getting a hold of the easements or acquiring leases, or purchasing properties was one of the big concerns you had two quarters ago, so you weren't putting up $400,000 boards on one-year leases.

  • - CEO

  • Well, we're doing a good job extending the maturities of our portfolio, and we're doing okay at acquiring easements. One of the things that makes it difficult on the easement side, is just real estate values and cap rates.

  • - Analyst

  • Right.

  • - CEO

  • And, of course, we were in a changing interest rate environment, so as we go forward, things may get better for us on that front.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. The CapEx on digital looks like around $400,000 a board, is that all-in, including rolling the truck and putting the thing up, and everything else, do you capitalize all that stuff?

  • - CEO

  • Yes, and we're getting much better than that number right now.

  • - Analyst

  • So, can you give us a rough idea what the board cost is on average?

  • - CEO

  • Yes, 240, 250 on the CapEx side for the board and the electronics and all that stuff. It probably doesn't include the truck roll, or does it include the truck roll?

  • - Analyst

  • That's of minor --

  • - CFO

  • Yes. And the soft cost is minor.

  • - Analyst

  • Finally, looks like you've got just a few months left at the rate you were buying back stock in the last quarter. Stock has moved up some. What's your feeling about the repurchase as we move up in price, and your authorization is down to $100 million or so?

  • - CFO

  • We have a limit that was set by the Board --

  • - CEO

  • Well, I guess, Terry, we're not in the habit of announcing the stock buyback, and not seeing it all the way through.

  • - Analyst

  • It sure looks like you're doing it.

  • - CEO

  • So my gut tells me that we still have plenty of time to complete what we've announced, and that we'll probably get that done and when we get that done, we will probably still find ourselves significantly under leveraged, so we'll probably make another announcement to the marketplace regarding our intentions regarding stock buyback.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, thank you very much.

  • Operator

  • Our last question comes from John [Clem] with Credit Suisse.

  • - Analyst

  • Good afternoon. Could you give us an idea as to where or which mediums you think the incremental advertising dollars are coming from that outdoors is attracting?

  • And secondly, could you highlight any differences in demand between bulletins and posters on the digital side? Thanks.

  • - CEO

  • Well, I'll hit the demand question first. We've received really good demand for all the digital products, so I think on a relative scale, if you put up a network and can deliver a meaningful local audience, it's slightly better. I kind of quantified it as it's a 5, 6, 7X incremental proposition with a one-off bulletin, but if you network posters or bulletins, you're looking at something that looks more like 7, 8, 9X incremental improvement. If that's helpful, that's what we're experiencing so far. What was the first part of the question?

  • - Analyst

  • Just looking for any idea as to where you all think the incremental advertising dollars that are coming to outdoor, which medium do you think you're taking share from?

  • - CEO

  • I can tell you what we're hoping to do, and that is, at least with regards to digital, given the fact it's a lower CPM, a costless full color product that you can change at will throughout the daytime, we're hoping to go straight to the heart of the newspaper ad spend, and I don't have anything that I can show you, in terms of analytics to that effect, but that is where we think we're going to get it.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, thanks very much.

  • Operator

  • I would like to turn the conference back over to Kevin Reilly.

  • - CEO

  • Well, I want to thank all our shareholders and friends again for listening in, and we look forward to our Q2 call. And with that, we'd like to say good-bye.

  • Operator

  • This concludes today's conference, you may disconnect from the call.