“Our U.S. business grew revenues over 5% driven by an acceleration in our billboard growth and high single digit growth in transit”, was how OUTFRONT CEO Jeremy Male described the company’s third quarter 2024 performance.  Here are the results of the OUTFRONT 3Q 2024 earnings release, 3Q 2024 earnings presentation and 3Q 2024 earnings call sponsored and analyzed by SignValue.

• Total revenue declined 0.6% due to the sale fo the company’s Canadian assets.  Organic billboard revenues (excluding the impact of the Canadian sale) increased 4.8% $361 million.  Transit revenues increase 7% to $91 million.  The company’s US media Billboard Yield (average revenue per display per month) increased from 2,800 in 3Q23 to $2,994 in 3Q24

• Operating expenses decreased 2.8% to $233 million due to0 the sale fo the canadian assets and lower property lease expense.  SG&A expense increased 3.2% due to higher salaries and commotion and an equity linked retirement plan and management consulting fees.
• Corporate expenses increased by 70% to $16 million in 3Q 2024 due to management consulting fees and high equity linked executive compensation.
• Adjusted Cashflow (OIBDA) increased 0.2% to $117 million due to increased corporate expenses.
• OUTFRONT finished the quarter with $2.5 billion in debt with a we3ighted averag cost of debt of 5.5% and a Debt/Cashflow ratio of 5 times.
• OUTFRONT will be paying a dividend of $0.75 cents a share or $125 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to a dividend of $0.30 per share or $50 million in the third quarter.  The dividend relates to the sale of the company’s Canadian assets.

OUTFRONT CFO Matt Siegel says leverage will decline

Our total net leverage was 5.0 times at September 2024 down from 5.4 times year end of 2023.  We expect to continue to reduce leverage to our four to five times target range through the adjusted OIBDA growth.

Siegel says OUTFRONT isn’t doing many acquisitions

There were no larger notable acquisitions made during the quarter looking at our current acquisition pipeline we expect to complete about a total of $25 million of acquisitions this year.

SignValue’s take:  OUTFRONT’s third quarter revenues grew faster than Lamar. Shareholders get a nice dividend from the Canada sale in the fourth quarter.  One negative was that operating cashflow (OIBDA) barely increased in the third quarter of 2024 due to to increased corporate spending. It’s encouraging to see the transit assets continuing to grow revenue at high single digits. SignValue can be reached at (480) 657-8400 or info@signvalue.com for a confidential consultation.