Here are five things about Lamar which Billboard Insider learned from reading all 119 pages of the Lamar Advertising 2021 10K.

Record this, record that.

2021 was Lamar’s best year ever for revenues, cashflow, cashflow margin and stock price.  The company used covid as a chance to prune expenses and become more efficient.  This translated into a record stock price as revenues rebounded.

A bigger workforce but not as big as before covid.

Lamar’s workforce grew 1% during 2021.  Sales reps dropped, corporate and regional staff increased.  Lamar’s total workforce is still 7% below where it was pre-covid.

Reilly Family control

The Reilly family controls 63% of Lamar’s voting shares.  Billboard Insider thinks this is a good thing.  Management runs the company for the benefit of shareholders because they are the company’s controlling shareholders.

Lamar is its biggest landlord.

Lamar owns the land beneath 12% of Lamar’s billboards.  Sean Reilly said this week that the company controls land accounting for 20% of Lamar’s revenue.  This implies that Lamar is good at buying land under its best billboards and that lease costs may not rise as fast as revenues in the future.  Lamar added 100 new easements during 2021.  This table also shows how Lamar culled sites during covid.

Numbers, not words on diversity

Billboard Insider takes a cynical view of diversity and inclusion pronouncements.  Everyone is pro-this or pro-that.  Actions matter, not words.  Kudos to Lamar for publicly reporting the participation of women and minorities in its workforce and on the board.  Lamar is the only public out of home company to do this.

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