“Our third quarter unfolded as expected” was how Lamar’s Sean Reilly introduced the company’s earnings release. Here are the results from the Lamar Advertising 3Q 2022 financials and earnings call.
- Revenue increased by 11% to $527 million for the third quarter. Acquisition adjusted revenue increased by 6%. Local revenue increased 6.2%. National/programmatic revenue up a measly 0.30% flat as increased national revenues were offset by a 10% decline in programmatic revenue.
- Adjusted EBIDTA increased by 9% to $251 million.
- The company ended the quarter with $3.2 billion of debt at an average interest rate of 4.25%. Debt/Cashflow was a low 3.2.
CEO Sean Reilly says Lamar is pursuing acquisitions
We remain very active on the M&A front with completed deals to-date of around $300 million and pending transactions which should take us north of $400 million for the year. You can expect us to remain a buyer in 2023…Pricing at the beginning of the year…in terms of asset values was a little bit higher than what we are seeing now. We plan to take advantage of that environment.
And Reilly says Lamar is asking for ad rate increases.
We’re coming off of decades of very very low inflation…our team was out there getting increases in the 2’s and 3 percents, sort of reflective of GDP. As we turned the corner into the back half of last year and into this year that all changed. Everybody had an inflation expectation…
CFO Jay Johnson Agrees
Rate increases on our large format traditional bulletins increased by almost 8% in Q3 following rate increases of over 9% in the first have of the year. In addition our outdoor portfolio remains at historically high occupancy.
Billboard Insider’s take: The cloud in the bright sky was a 10% decrease in programmatic spend. Programmatic adjusts quickest to changes in economic conditions. An early indicator of an ad pullback? Lamar stock declined 1% on a day when the S&P 500 grew 1.4%, OUTFRONT declined 3.9% and Clear Channel Outdoor declined 5.9%.
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