Here’s a summary of Clear Channel CFO Brian Coleman’s comments at this week’s Barclay’s Leverage Finance conference.
All about the US
Our emphasis is in the US, and it’s largely in digital…We want to continue to emphasize growth in our US platform…as far as transit goes, for us in the US that’s primarily airports. We are a strong niche player in that market place, it was rounded in a year ago with the winning of the Port Authority contract which was airports…we feel a little underrepresented in the city of New York so having the airports complements our assets.
European Sale
I don’t really have an update…We’re going through all the work…in the current environment that’s something that requires even more thought…the focus is in the Americas.
Tuck-in acquisitions
Price is pretty robust but we’re seeing some activity…There are opportunities. We want to be active in the tuck in space. In Q4 we did approximately $20 million of M&A. We started to break in out separately. Q1 wasn’t particularly active…we want to continue to look at tuck-in acquisitions that are accretive, that fit into where we are…
Capital Allocation
We want to continue to invest in digital…if LA came through on their digital sign ordinance and we go the opportunity to turn back on a portion of the 80 signs we lost a decade ago we want to be able to do that. If we won a big contract in a city that doesn’t currently have digital and athere are some we want to be there for that…that is the biggest return…M&A…we want to continue to look at opportunities…Given the current maco and economic overlay it probably makes sense to hold on to the liquidity we have…
On being a REIT
The option to convert to a REIT is something we have to preserve but you have to get leverage down to do that. COVID put a lot of things on hold…
What’s new in Europe
On a consolidated level the US is back to 2019 and through it…International travel is anticipated to go up…We’re seeing that recovery in Europe as well. On a consolidated level we’re not back to 2019 revenue and EBIDTA. Justin our CEO of Europe talked about how between now and the end of the year he expects that…The UK with a strong digital network, they are already above 2019 but in other markets without a strong digital network – that’s really the drag…
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