Lamar Organic Revenue Up 2.2% in 1Q 2019

“The first quarter played out largely as we anticipated, with acquisition-adjusted revenue growth a little over 2%.  I’m particularly pleased by the continued strong performance of our digital platform, and I’m optimistic about the balance of 2019.”  That’s how Lamar CEO Sean Reilly summarized first quarter 2019 financials.  Here are the results from the conference call and 1Q 2019 earnings release.  

  • Net revenue increased 6.5% to $385 million.  Acquisition acquisition adjusted or organic revenues increased 2.2%.  Reilly expects organic revenue growth in excess of 3% for the full year 2019.
  • Expenses increased 7.2% to $238 million.
  • Adjusted cashflow or EBIDTA increased 5.2% to $146 million due to increased revenue.
  • Lamar had $390 in liquidity at March 31, 2019 including $357 million in availability under its revolving line of credit and $33 million in cash.
  • Lamar did $60 million in acquisitions during the first quarter.  Reilly said the company will continue tuck-in acquisitions: “We’ve digested what we did last year.  The Fairway assets…We don’t believe there will be anything of that order of magnitude but by the time you add it all up it should approach $250-300 million.
  • Capital expenditures totaled $26 million for the first quarter 2019.  Here’s a breakout.

  • The company finished the quarter with 2,279 digital billboard faces.  Reilly said the company will add 230-240 digital billboards in 2019.
  • Reilly was cautious about the revenue potential from leasing billboard space to cellular companies for antennas: “We’ve been very cautious to get too excited about 5G and the large cellular companies using our platform to roll out their infrastructure.  If you look at what a lot of Lamar land looks like they want to be up a little taller than we can get them….and if you look at the more high dense urban markets there’s a lot of competition.  There’s a lot of places they can put them.  We’re getting nickels and dimes…it’s not something that I would say is moving the needle.”

Insider’s take:  Surprising that expenses increased faster than revenues during the first quarter.   Not normal for Lamar.  Lamar down 1.8% to $80.42 on a day where everything else fell as well.  The S&P 500 was down 0.2%.  Clear Channel Outdoor was down 7%.  Outfront was down 1.5%.

[wpforms id=”9787″]


Paid Advertisement

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Comments are closed.