Clear Channel CEO Scott Wells and CFO David Sailer appeared at the JP Morgan investors conference this week. Here is a summary of their comments, sponsored and analyzed by SignValue.
CEO Scott Wells Says business is steady
Our advertising base is quite steady. If you look at it at the local level we don’t have a lot of businesses that are heavily exposed to the tariffs… things like business services, lawyers, healthcare – these businesses are pretty steady…You’ve seen a little bit of a slowdown in in auto in in the local market… we’re seeing insurance coming back which is incredibly welcome…
Wells says digital conversions have a 30% IRR
We remain incredibly bullish on digital conversions and they continue to deliver really good economics…IRR’s in the low 30s…so digital remains an important growth driver for the business
CFO David Sailer hopes to cut overhead by more than $35 million.
Our business is going to be different in 2026 than it was in 2020…so the structure of our business should be different so we’ll be going through all our corporate budgets and really saying you know you know what do we really need to run that department as opposed to what we have so that that’s going to be the zero-based process and I…expect…additional expenses that come out above the $35 million you know as we get into the full year of 2026.
CEO Scott Wells identifies two kinds of joint ventures Clear Channel Outdoor wants to pursue
The simplest form… would be…a sidecar where we’re just managing it for someone and and taking a revenue share…at the most complex level it would be an actual joint venture where maybe we’re contributing assets…a sponsor is contributing cash and we’re…buying something…
SignValue’s Take: We are skeptical of any long-term value boost from adding more managed assets. The company is already heavily weighted in shorter term transit and airport agreements that are also undervalued. The value of a management income is just the discounted cashflow of the management contract, which is much, much less than the value of owning and operating billboard assets. Strategic US acquisitions and new development by their real estate division should be their primary focus.
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