“We are ending 2026 with a lot of momentum,” was how Lamar Advertising CEO Sean Reilly summed up the the third quarter of 2026.  Here are the results of the Lamar Advertising 3Q earnings release and conference call sponsored and analyzed by SignValue.

• Revenues increased 6.6% to $625 million.  National revenue was up 20%.  Local revenue was up 4%. The airport business was up 14%.  Areas of strength were political, services, retail, auto and telecom.
• Adjusted cashflow increased 9.3% to $307 million.
• Lamar finished the quarter with $3.5 billion in total debt with a weighted average cost of 4.5%, an average maturity of 3.9 years and a low Debt/Cashflow of 2.84.
• Capital expenditures totaled $45 million for the quarter and are projected at $153 million for the year.  Lamar ended the third quarter of 2026 with 5,883 digital billboards up from 5,730 digital billboard faces in the second quarter of 2026.

Lamar CEO Sean Reilly says the political market is strong

A word on political. It’s clear to us that with every cycle, we are without a doubt gaining momentum and market share.  As campaigns and PACs recognize the value of our audience.  Nationally, political ad spend across all media is expected to grow about 30% this year over 2022. And modestly over 2024.  We will do far better than that.  Our political spend this year will top 40 million, more than double what we generated in 2022.  And up 40% over 2024.  Nearly half of that spend will show up in Q4.  Our digital platform, the largest in the industry, is a key driver of our growth for the political category. It accounts for about half of the political spend.

And Lamar is doing lots of M&A

On the M&A front, we’ve been busy year to date. We have closed 54 Billboard acquisitions for a cash purchase price of more than $147 million, and we’ve spent more than $55 million enhancing the security of our real estate portfolio by purchasing easements beneath our better billboards…We completed our second UPREIT transaction in August.  We have a healthy pipeline of additional deals that we expect to finalize and announce over the next couple of months…We’re seeing as much activity as I’ve ever seen in my career.

SignValue’s take: National and airport revenues have accelerated at Lamar.  In past quarters local has been leading the way.  Lamar continues to get scale economies by expanding and we think the easement purchases will help increase future margins because Lamar is buying easements under it’s fastest growing billboards. The earnings release cushioned Lamar from a falling market.  Lamar stock finished down 0.8% on a day when the S&P declined 4.4% and OUTFRONT declined 1.5%.

If you have questions, contact one of SignValue’s experienced analyst for a free and confidential consultation at info@signvalue.com or call 480–657–8400.