“Our first quarter results succeeded our internal expectations on both the top and bottom lines with strength from both local and particularly national customers” was how CEO Sean Reilly began Lamar Advertising’s first quarter 2026 conference call. Here are the results of Lamar Advertising first quarter 2026, earnings release, 10Q and conference call, sponsored and analyzed by Signvalue.
- Revenue increased by 4.5% to $526 million. National revenue grew 5.8%. Programmatic grew 25%. Digital revenues grew 30%. Static revenue rates grew 3%. Lamar CEO Sean Reilly said pacing suggests revenue growth will accelerate in the last half of 2026.
- Cashflow (EBIDTA) increased 8% to $226 million.
- Capital expenditures totaled $33.1 million for the first quarter of 2025 consisting of $9.3 million of maintenance spending and $23.8 million of growth spending. Digital billboards accounted for $13 million of the company’s total capital spending.
- Lamar ended the quarter with $3.5 billion of debt with a weighted average interest rate of 4.5% and a weighted average debt maturity of 4.3 years. Debt to Cashflow is a low 3:1.
Lamar CEO Sean Reilly says Lamar is making acquisitions and easement purchases
On the M&A front, we are off to an active start. So far in 2026, we have completed 19 acquisitions for a total cash purchase price of $80 million, and we have a solid pipeline working and potential for more accretive billboard deals. Meanwhile, we have ramped up our efforts to secure easements beneath our best-performing locations, and we are optimistic about what we will be able to accomplish there in 2026. That’s a great use of our capital, by the way.
Reilly expects Lamar to do more UPREIT acquisitions
We’ve had several inbound inquiries, and we’re hopeful that we’ll — we can get a couple of UPREIT deals done this year. And it’s a very, very attractive structure for sellers. It’s very tax efficient. And of course, they get to hitch their wagon to Lamar, diversify their exposure to out-of-home, and we’ve been a good bet so far.
SignValue’s Take: A good quarter with healthy revenue and cashflow growth, especially in Q1 that is historically soft. We agree with Sean Reilly that easement purchases are a good use of capital. Easement purchases boost margins and reduce business risk by lowering average land lease costs. New greenfield sign development is an even better use of capital than buying easements or making acquisitions.
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.
The market liked what it heard. Lamar was up 7.1% on a day when OUTFRONT was up 3.3%, Clear Channel Outdoor up 0.4% and the S&P 500 DOWN 0.4%
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