“We had a very successful first quarter…that exceeded our internal expectations for both revenue and EBITDA growth thanks to continued strength in local sales and renewed growth on our digital platform,” said CEO Sean Reilly began Lamar Advertising’s first quarter 2024 investor call. Here are the results of Lamar Advertising’s first quarter 2024 earnings release and investor call.
- Net revenue increased by 5.7% to $498 million. Local was up 7%, programmatic up 27%, transit up 12%, airports up 20%. The only weakness was national which was down 6%.
- Adjusted EBITDA increased by 7.1% to $212 million.
- Lamar had $3.4 billion of debt at March 31, 2024 with a weighted average cost of 5.1% and a weighted average maturity of 4 years. Debt/EBIDTA was a low 3.14 times.
Lamar CEO Sean Reilly on the weak national market
National was down about 5.5% versus the first quarter of 2023. We continue to see some larger accounts taking a cautious approach to their ad spend and we foresee another decline in national in Q2 though maybe a tad better than in Q1. We are tweaking how we are pitching certain national accounts and we are hopeful national will firm up as the year unfolds. I will note that we’ve had good success reselling the panels vacated by some of the national advertisers which is reflected in the very strong local numbers…
Reilly said it was a quiet quarter for M&A
it was a quiet quarter on the M&A front as we closed four deals for a total of $18 million. I expect that to continue. Our plan remains to dedicate the bulk of our free cash flow this year…to paying off our $350 million term a loan which will further strengthen our balance sheet ahead of what we anticipate will be a more active market for deals in 2025.
CFO Jay Johnson says Lamar has $1 billion in capacity for acquisitions when it chooses to reenter the market
…This focus on our balance sheet will result in approximately $1 billion investment capacity while remaining below the high end of our target leverage range of 3.5 to 4 times net debt to EBITDA.
Billboard Insider’s take: A typical Lamar quarter. Steady revenue growth. Tight expense control. Rising EBIDTA. Good time to be a Lamar exec because Reilly said he expects the company’s stock based compensation expense to rise later this year because the company is exceeding targets. Lamar is positioned to make a big splash in the acquisitions market in 2025. Adams? A CCO asset spinoff? Expect to see Lamar in the mix. Lamar finished the day up 1%. Clear Channel Outdoor up 7%. The S&P 500 up 1%. OUTFRONT down 2%.
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