Lamar Advertising Co (LAMR) 2016 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Excuse me, everyone. We now have Sean Riley and Keith Istre in conference.

(Operator Instructions)

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. 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 this call in the Company's first-quarter 2016 earnings release and its most recent annual report on form 10-K as updated or supplemented by its quarterly reports on form 10-Q. Lamar refers you to those documents.

Lamar's first-quarter 2016 earnings release, which contains information required by Regulation G regarding certain non-GAAP financial measures, was furnished to the SEC on a form 8-K this morning and is available on the investor's 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.

Thank you and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Lamar's Q1 2016 earnings call. 2016 is off to a great start. For the full year we see real acceleration in our pacings.

Q2 is pacing measurably better than Q1, and Q3 is pacing better than Q2. We are feeling very good about how 2016 is shaping up.

The integration of the new Clear Channel market is ahead of plan, and their performance is also exceeding expectations. Consequently, as we sit today we are confident that we are tracking comfortably at the top end of our AFFO first-year guidance, which is approximately $5 a share.

I will now turn it over to Keith to walk through the numbers.

Good morning, everybody. Just a couple of bullet points with respect to the press release. On the first page of the release at the very top we have the results for the quarter, the three-month results and then the pro forma results. I'd just like to make sure everybody is clear, the three-month results are our results actual Q1 of last year compared to the Company's results for Q1 of this year and that includes the Clear Channel markets that we acquired in the first quarter.

We did not have those markets obviously last year in Q1. The three-month pro forma results, as has always been our practice, we fold in the performance of any acquisitions that we make into our history -- our core history, and then we compare our results against our history. So the three-month pro forma results include the performance of the Clear Channel markets that we acquired in Q1 of 2015 compared against our performance in Q1 of 2016.

A note on our consolidated expense growth in the quarter, it increased 2.3% that is a little higher than we normally run. We're normally at about 2% or sub 2%. There was $1 million worth of severance that the Company paid out in Q1 that was related to the Clear Channel acquisition that was a one-time event and that is over going forward. Without that $1 million, our consolidated expense growth would have been 1.8%, which is generally the range that we have been running.

Last, the AFFO, which is on page 8 of the release, the last page, I'd just like to mention that on the maintenance CapEx, we were down for the quarter over last year about $7 million. The CapEx that's spent is mainly determined -- the timing of is determined by the operations guys in the field. Corporate allocates the capital at the beginning of each year, and the profit centers decide when they are going to actually spend that depending on the need, the weather, et cetera. You may see some peaks and valleys in that number, but just to make sure everybody knows, our target maintenance CapEx for the year is $45 million, and we track that very closely here at corporate to make sure that we do not go over that number on an annual basis.

With that, I will turn it back over to Sean.

Great. Thanks, Keith. Let me hit just a couple of the operating metrics that we usually cover on these quarterly calls. We ended the quarter with 2,488 digitals up and operational. Of course a good chunk of that increase came from the Clear Channel acquisition; in fact 171 of them came from the Clear Channel acquisition and 33 were put up organically.

The story on same-store revenue for digital units is quite good. We were up same board 3.4% and very pleased to see that performance, it gives us a great deal of confidence going forward as we continue to deploy in 2016. We anticipate something around 150 greenfield new units this year. We feel comfortable since we are seeing that kind of performance.

On local and national, the local book was up 4.5%, outstanding strength in Main Street, USA. National was actually down about 1% that was primarily in the auto category where we had a spot buy drop out on us unexpectedly. But for that it would have been flat, and that is what we were expecting on the national side. Going forward, national is much stronger in Q2 than Q1.

Speaking of the categories, we had some real good performers; restaurants were up 4%, service was up 13% and is now 12% of our book, hospitals and healthcare was up 7%, and real estate continues its recovery. Real estate was up 12% Q1 2016 over Q1 2015. In terms of our large verticals, but for the one spot buy that dropped out in the first in automotive, all of our top verticals are performing very well.

The automotive category is going to perform well the rest of the year. That was a little bit of anomaly.

With that, I'm happy to open it up for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Marci Ryvicker, Wells Fargo.

Sean, you talked about Q2 and Q3. I guess the first question is, how much visibility do you have into both quarters? And when you see they're measurably better, are they mid-single digits or just above the 2.6% [toll melt] low single-digit range?

We are in that mid-single digit zip code. So we feel good.

What is driving it? Is it national recovery?

Local is really strong. Again, we had that one spot buy drop out, and that customer is coming in the rest of the year. It was a little bit of an anomaly. And, keep in mind, in the first, we were comping against 5.2% up, right. So pretty tough comp.

And the book is strong. I think you're going to hear it from -- you've heard it from Clear and you're going to hear it from out front that the national book is firming up and, in our case, the local book is likewise exceeding our expectations.

Okay. If you're up mid-single digits, Keith, would you still keep expenses at that 2% consolidated growth, or will there be a bump in expenses as well?

No, we don't think so. On the last call, you asked what our expectations were for the year, and we said we had been running sub 2% for the past several years. So, I just threw out that 2% would probably be the max. But, no, we don't see any -- on a pro-forma basis we don't see any unusual items that would cause that to spike above that point.

Okay. And then, the last question, is the seasonality of the Clear Channel assets that you acquired pretty similar to the seasonality of your own (inaudible), just so we can figure out how to do our prior-year historical base?

Sure. There should be no difference in the seasonality. And what was gratifying to us is the performance of those assets almost mirrored our traditional outdoor assets that we've owned for such a long time. As I mentioned, they exceeded our expectations. We got it back when we bought them to about 2.5% pro-forma growth for them for the year, if you recall on that call back in January. And they did 2.9% in the first. So, we are happy, and their pacings are exceeding our expectations thus far.

Great. Thank you so much.

David Miller, Topeka Capital Markets.

Hey, guys. A couple questions. Sean, so I think it was 90 days ago that you talked about just seeing some slight weakness in, I think you called it, the oil-patch markets like Lafayette, Louisiana; Norman, Oklahoma, et cetera. Given what's happened with the recovery of the price of oil, is that still the case? Have you seen some improvement there in those markets? And then I just have a follow up. Thanks.

Sure. I think it's a little early in the game to declare recovery in the oil patch. Not only do you have to have the price of oil go up, you have to have business confidence follow. And I'm not so sure that, in places like Oklahoma City and Houma and Midland, that they are ready to declare all clear just yet.

Okay. Fair enough. And then, Keith, just given what you reported in Q1 on earnings per share, the previously dispensed earnings per share guidance of $2.97 to $3.06 looks incredibly conservative for the year. I just want to make sure, is there anything that we should be aware of in either the current quarter or Q3, in particular, with regard to expenses or expense growth or depreciation or anything like that, that might cause you to not come in at least at the high end of that guidance? Thanks.

No. I mean, that's basically tied to AFFO as well. We use the same numbers pretty much to get to both of those metrics. As Sean said, we feel very good about our guidance at this point in time for both of those.

Okay. Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions)

Alexia Quadrani, JPMorgan.

Hi. Thank you. This is Julie Yuan for Alexia. Now that you have been testing your automated buying system for a couple of quarters, could you give us an update on how that's progressing and if you think, based on the initial result, there's a greater opportunity to expand the initiative? And is it something that you would maybe look to get more proactive in, going forward?

Yes, thanks. What we're seeing there is -- and these are small numbers, but we are seeing each month a little more billing flowing through that platform. So, for the month of March, just to give you an order of magnitude, about -- a little better than $80,000 went through our automated buying platform. Again, it is growing. It is growing every month.

Our philosophy on it is that we are trying to develop our platform so that any buying platform can plug into it. And so, in terms of the initiative, we started out with a single vendor, and that vendor has grown its book of business, as I said, month over month, gradually. But we are working with other vendors that can plug and play into our platform as well.

And, I believe, on the last conference I was at I gave a shout out to one that we are working with now called Ayuda that we hope can help us grow that business. Again, it is something that we believe is going to play a role in our future, and we are going at it in what we believe to be a thoughtful way.

Okay. Got it. And then, I believe historically you have mentioned that political hasn't been much of a benefit to your business. Do you think that it could be more of a contributor this year? If so, how much do you think it could help in the back half?

With one caveat, which is I don't want folks to view us as an ex-political medium like they view TV and radio, because it is not that order of magnitude. That said, political is going to play a bigger role in the back half of our year, unquestionably.

We began seeing a little bit of a shift in the cycle four years ago, and I think it had a lot to do with how much money is now involved in presidential races given the Citizens United case. But, undoubtedly, there will be lots of money spent and some of it will come our way. Certainly not the same order of magnitude of what goes to TV and radio, but it is going to help our pro-forma performance come the third and fourth quarter.

Great. Thanks so much.

Tracy Young, Evercore ISI.

Hi. I'm sorry if I missed this, but did you talk about the digital same-station performance? Obviously, that was an improvement from prior quarters than what you're seeing in Q2.

Yes, we were up same board 3.4% on our digital platform, and the second quarter looks equally as strong if not stronger. So we feel, like I said, really good about where that platform is and where it could go.

Okay. Great. And then, in terms of the airport business that you bought a while back, we haven't really discussed that. But is there anything that we should know in terms of milestones there, or any changes that have happened in the last year and a half or so?

We've owned it now for something in the neighborhood of eight months. The business -- when we bought it I think we told everybody that we expected something in the neighborhood of $23 million, $24 million in revenue contribution for 2016, and something in the neighborhood of $2.5 million in EBITDA contribution. So, that's the base upon which we are going to grow. We see that performance happening this year. We are comfortable with it. It is a good business. I wouldn't call it material to our activities to date, but we hope to grow it.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Mr. Reilly, it looks like we have no further questions at this time.

Great. Thank you all for listening, and we look forward to getting together next quarter.

Thank you. This concludes today's presentation. You may disconnect at this time.