Earnings Labs

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (CCO)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 20, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Clear Channel Fourth Quarter 2013 and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I'll now turn the conference over to your opening speaker, Effie Epstein, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Effie Epstein

Analyst

Good morning, and thank you for joining our 2013 fourth quarter and full year earnings call. On the call today are Rich Bressler, President and Chief Financial Officer; and Brian Coleman, Senior Vice President and Treasurer. We'll provide an overview of the fourth quarter and full year 2013 financial and operating performances of CC Media Holdings, Clear Channel Communications and Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings. Please note, we've published slides to accompany this call, and you can find those on our website. For purposes of this call, when we describe the financial and operating performance of CC Media Holdings, that also describes the performance of its subsidiary, Clear Channel Communications. After an introduction and our review of the quarter and year, we'll open up the line for questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call may include forward-looking statements that involve uncertainties and risks. There can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs or projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please see our annual reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of important factors that could affect our actual results. Pacing data will also be mentioned during this call. For those of you not familiar with pacing data, it reflects revenues booked at a specific date versus the comparable date in the prior period and may or may not reflect the actual revenue growth rate at the end of the period. The company's revenue and pacing information includes an adjustment to prior periods to incorporate all acquisitions and exclude all divestitures in both periods for comparative purposes. We also eliminate the effects of movements in foreign exchange rates from pacing. During today's call, we will provide certain performance measures that do not conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. We've provided schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of our earnings press releases and the slide presentation, which can be found on the Investors section of our websites, clearchannel.com and clearchanneloutdoor.com. Please note that our 2 earnings releases and the slide presentation provide detailed breakdown of all foreign exchange and noncash compensation expense items, as well as segment revenues and OIBDAN for the quarter and full year. Our discussion today also excludes the effects of movements in foreign exchange and adjustment for divestitures in 2012, unless otherwise noted. With that, I will now turn over the call to Rich Bressler.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Thanks, Effie. Good -- and good morning, everybody. As Effie mentioned in the opening remarks, we did publish slides to accompany this call, and you can find those on our websites. Before jumping into our results, I'll start off by saying that I just got back from Clear Channel's annual leadership summit where we got together with our top people from all around the world. They help give me confidence in our path to success. Our people are our greatest assets, and I am more confident than ever that we have the best leaders, and we are all steering towards the same goals. Let's review 2013. We continue to invest in expanding our services and making sure consumers can find us wherever they want. This past year, we invested strategically in our people, digital platforms including iHeartRadio, our events business and our -- and in our continuing deployment of digital platform displays. Our focus is to be #1 multi-platform media company in revenue and earnings, in addition to reach. We also put together some key strategic partnerships by partnering with the CW Network to add 7 television shows that reach over 50 million viewers, and we recently announced a multiyear cross-platform partnership with Horizon Media, the first of its kind in the industry. With the retirement of John Hogan, Bob Pittman and I have taken over the direct management of Clear Channel's Media and Entertainment division. We also went through some organizational realignment to help strengthen our foundation for long-term success. For example, earlier this month, we created a new unified networks group at CCM+E headed by Clear Channel veteran Darren Davis to further integrate our Premiere Networks, Total Traffic and Weather Networks, the 24/7 News Network and The iHeartRadio Network. This allows us to realize the value of our…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from the line of Jason Kim.

Jason K. Kim - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay, great. I'll start off with some business questions and maybe a capital structure question later. And can you talk about your outlook for margins in 2014? In the past couple of years, we have seen the company make a lot of investments in growth initiatives, some of which have impacted your profitability somewhat. And I'm hoping that you can share with us in broad terms how you think about the level of investments you'll be making in 2014 compared to last year, and if the historical incremental margin profile of -- somewhere along the lines of 70% to 80% on the radio side of the business can be had this year and to the extent to which you see some revenue uptick.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Jason, thanks. It's Rich. So I guess -- I think there's a lot in that question, so let me try and hit on a bunch at different levels. First of all, just straight from the market question, look, we've invested in the company, as everybody knows, particularly in Media and Entertainment, and particularly within Media and Entertainment, our national sales and programming capabilities in our digital platform and our events, with the expectation -- and I think you're going to [indiscernible] obviously that will continue to see that, that these investments will yield revenue growth. So if we look forward, as we look to this year and to next year moving forward, I expect that you're going to see us -- you're going to continue to see margin expansion. I think the second part there is that if you look at a lot of these investments and I think probably more focused on what we call iHeartRadio, just to be clear, that's a key asset for us that -- and when I highlight those, it spans all of our Media and Entertainment businesses, the mobile app, the websites of our stations, our events. So these investments also support the growth and monetization of our core radio business. And as a reminder -- and again, I note, we'd all like to see more in the numbers, and we will continue to see the financial numbers accelerate as we move forward through this year and into next year. But some of the things I point you to that our investments are working, the fact that we were up -- I mentioned this in the opening remarks, we're up 29% over 2013 in total listening hours for iHeart with over -- nearly 300 million downloads and updates. And we're in the process of really focused on the monetization through our thousand stations and 84 million visitors on a monthly basis. So there's a lot of leverage here to pull in terms of the monetization, and one of the reasons give you the operating stats, it's so you guys could all benchmark that we're making progress, which is resulting in financial results and will continue to result in more accelerated financial results, which will continue to improve margins.

Jason K. Kim - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then on the CCOA Americas pacing side -- and I know you typically do not talk about specific numbers in terms of the impact from the L.A. digital board situation and some losses in the airport contracts. But can you just give us a sense of how your core trends in CC Americas, excluding those 2 items, are looking for 1Q maybe compared to the most recent couple of quarters?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Well, look, I'm not going to -- I'm really not going to, as I said on the call, I really do hate pacings, giving pacings. I understand it's a fact of life, but I do hate pacings. And I think with the -- when we get through the second quarter, after we get by the second quarter and midway through the second quarter, we won't have the tough comparisons anymore because we'll be done with the overall L.A. pacings. But look, our business continues to perform well. The first quarter is always the toughest quarter for us, as I said upfront. We're more excited than -- quite frankly, in the Outdoor business than we've ever been. I think if you look at all the recent data, Americans are spending 70% of their time out of the home. Quite frankly, some of the innovative stuff William and his team is doing, things like the virtual bookstore in Copenhagen, which we've talked about and you guys should go online and look at, stuff we did with Chiswick Towers in London, the rolling out of the digital displays in the U.S. where we're putting our capital to, you look at all those things. We are very, very bullish about Outdoor. But giving -- I'm not going to say anything more beyond the pacing information I gave.

Jason K. Kim - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. And just one question on the capital structure side, either for Brian or for Rich. Clearly, you've done a lot of work since the last earnings call, but the one bucket of maturities that were not addressed since then are the legacy bond maturities. So can you talk about what your thought process is with respect to those notes in the context of the fact that you've now raised over $400 million in liquidity from asset sales and some -- sale also of your proceeds of '21?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

I'll let Brian -- Brian, do you want to handle that, please?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Sure, happy to. Yes, I think in a way, we have. By selling some of the 2021 notes that were held by an unrestricted subsidiary and then since moving that cash up to the parent, that's cash, that's liquidity that's available to repay the legacy note maturities both later this year and in 2015. So it's an indirect way of really refinancing this legacy debt with the issuance of the LBO notes with a 2021 maturity I don't know if you think about it that way, but I kind of do. I think the reality is a lot of the holders of the '14 and the '15 notes are expecting to get paid that cash at maturity. Now we have the liquidity, and we'll examine whether or not it's at maturity or sometime before, and that will be an economic decision, but I do think the actions we are taking do address, in an indirect way, the refinancing of those maturities.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Marci Ryvicker.

Marci Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So the negative 7.5% pace in Q1 is clearly a little surprising to people. And I'm curious if this has gotten worse throughout the quarter because I know it is a pacing number. And also, can you give us any color on maybe the overall Outdoor market because this does feel like it's very Clear Channel-specific? So are you seeing weakness in the entire market or the industry, or is this just company-specific?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Yes. Sorry, it's Rich. So thanks for the questions. So a couple of things. So look, I'm not going to comment on the overall industry. The only thing I'll comment about is really on Clear Channel. Remember, you do have a couple of things. You do have -- again, I hate to keep reiterating this, but we do have the 77 digital billboards that were turned off on April 15. Where we are seeing some strength is we are seeing higher occupancy rates for bulletin and posters in connection with new contracts. We're seeing higher occupancy and capacity on overall on digital boards, obviously ex L.A. with the ones that we have up. So again, as I do say, we feel very, very good about the business, and I expect we'll continue to see strength as we go throughout the quarter. I'm not going to comment beyond that.

Marci Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

And then it's interesting that radios, the core stations are pacing up 3%. So is that something that's specifically Clear Channel as well, or are you feeling strength from overall advertising demand?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

I think again, I don't want to talk a lot about in terms of the rest of the industry. You guys all have your own opinions. But as I said in -- I think, in answer to the question earlier from Jason, too, is we have made a bunch of investments over the years, which we talked about last year and we pointed out. And I think you're starting also to see the upside on the monetization that we do in the company, whether that comes from iHeart. We're aggressively doing revenue management, making sure that we're allocating dollars to where we have inventory and maximizing the revenue. I think we're doing a really good job quite frankly on capital allocation, allocating -- and capital being broadly defined in terms of working capital and dollars that -- where we're getting the return. And as I've mentioned previously, we're seeing strong growth particularly in telecom. We love telecom [indiscernible] financial services and health care. And so you can look across the board there.

Marci Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

And my last question is do you have a target number for digital boards for '14?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

No. The only thing I would say is we're going to have more. [indiscernible]

Marci Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Are you going to put up more boards than you did in '13?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

I'm not going to comment on that now. I just can tell you we're going to have more absolute digital boards.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Avi Steiner. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: A few left here, pretty easy. Let's start with balance sheet. How do you think about monetizing the remaining 14% balance? Is it being cost of capital perspective value where you can sell them? Or now that your cash balance is, I guess, $1.1 billion pro forma, do you feel you're not in a rush and have time?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Yes, you know what I would tell you is we were pleasantly surprised at the demand. We got a lot of reverse inquiry. We clubbed together a deal, and it was a pretty easy deal to do. We could have done more. The reason we didn't is exactly as you kind of intimated in your question. It is -- it's a relatively expensive cost of capital, and with this action, combined with the proceeds from the ARN's disposition, we feel pretty comfortable about our maturities over the next couple of years. It's still a currency. It's traded up, has become a little more attractive perhaps, but it's still, it's relatively expensive. What we like about this trade is it was immediately actionable, had a high degree of certainty, but the cost is such that we only did about half of the position. And that's why we did half. But you're right. We feel pretty good about the liquidity balance. We feel like our maturities are covered for the next couple of years. Hopefully, operations will continue to perform and grow, but we have that currency in our back pocket if we need it in the future. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Great. And then another easy one. After-tax proceeds on ARN, and can you just confirm not required to use those proceeds to pay down bank debt?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

That's right. We intend to reinvest the proceeds from ARN in the business. And we'll be providing the required notice under the credit agreement within the requisite period of time. I think it's about 10 days. If you take a look at our anticipated CapEx, I think we gave some guidance in the deck that we posted to our website. It's pretty easy to reinvest these proceeds in the business, and that is our intention. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And after tax, was it the $220 million and change that I converted?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

I don't think there's any material tax effect on these proceeds, so I -- it should be pretty much the net proceeds of the sale. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Perfect. Rich, if I can turn it to you, Pandora has a $7 billion enterprise value. Plenty of articles about Spotify potentially going public, Facebook making acquisitions, Internet valuations are what they are, digital. How do you think about what you have with iHeart and how you can -- the company can potentially take advantage of those?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Well, I -- it's like you want to thank Zuckerberg this morning for that deal because I'd tell you, when you look at the WhatsApp stuff, I mean -- and I don't know. I'm sure many of you did, but listening or hearing stuff about the call last night that they have and listening to both the press and a lot of you this morning talking about it, it's so much about social. It's so much about community in terms of why Facebook did that deal, and you just take a step back. And Bob and I have been saying this and -- for some period of time now. That's what radio is. It is the amount of time you spend online every day. I think it's almost 2.5 hours a day people spend online with radio. Engagement, we are -- about 90%, 92% of the American population listens to radio every week, same for the last -- since the early 1970s. And you couple that with the personalities that we have, that people love and that tune in daily and the local element, which is critical, and what real radio is all about, which is connecting listeners to the community. I keep emphasizing community and social and the world around them, and it's a social experience that -- because you're experiencing it at the same time the other listeners, then you're getting local news, weather information, traffic, if anything, I -- with WhatsApp -- and the market says WhatsApp is worth $19 billion. You tell me what the value of the fact that we have 243 million people that we reach on a regular basis, so -- on a monthly basis. And so that's kind of the first part. I think just looking stand-alone -- and don't even compare…

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

It's -- well, it's not part of the restricted group. And again, I think if you go back to what I said, I think, probably a couple of times in answering some questions, you've got to look at digital and iHeart and everything within this company really as one. It's additive to our terrestrial opportunity, and you have to look at them as complementary. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I'm sorry, you...

Brian Coleman

Analyst

One thing I would say, obviously, we typically get that question in reverse, is it part of the unrestricted group? Those assets, as Rich said, are a part of the radio broadcasting group. They all are part of the restricted group. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: They are. That's what I wanted to clarify. They are part of the restricted group, yes?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Yes.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Yes. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Perfect. Two more very quickly. I promise I'm done. Number one, you signed a, at least on the headline, $100 million cross-platform deal with Horizon. Can you give color on that, around deals with the SFX, really what, I guess, revenue opportunities are there that maybe we're not missing, just looking directly at the numbers?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Well, look, the -- I think the Horizon deal is extremely critical because it -- look, it's the first of -- it's a partnership that's the first of the kind not only for Clear Channel but for the industry, and we look forward to signing more strategic multi-platform arrangements for other clients. It's especially significant, again, for us because it's a major agency that we've now formally partnered with, that recognizes our unmatched ability to really develop and execute multi-platform partnerships that leverage all the powerful properties that we have and the talent that we have to deliver result for the partners. You should think about it as this is really a deep integrated marketing partnership that enables Horizon and its clients, most importantly, the Horizon clients, to leverage our assets, including -- I'm going to go back to it again, mobile, out-of-home, broadcast, digital or events. And what that does, it improves the effectiveness and ROI -- and really prove the effectiveness, I'm sorry, of ROI, of broadcast and out-of-home. And so the Horizon deal -- again, SFX deal. We've known Bob Sillerman a long time. He's built a great company with SFX and EDM, electronic dance music. And the ability, again, without repeating, entirely our asset base again and our reach again and our 243 million people again and our events and our ability to create brands and create awareness. That's why whether it's from the Horizon perspective, which I just went through, or from Bob Sillerman's perspective, SFX that I just went through, we continue to form these partnerships that are win-wins for both sides. Avi Steiner - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Excellent. Very last question. You talked about other noncore assets. I don't know if you want to be specific, but is there an opportunity set there that's above $100 million?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

So the answer to your last question is no, I'm not going to be specific. As you would be -- it's shocking that I'm not going to be specific. But look, this is something we do every day. I think when I did the first call, when I came in to work and partner with Bob 5 or 6 months ago, I said one of the things I thought we could do, because the team has done a great job here on the capital structure even long before I got here, I thought we could even step up our focus in our balance sheet being more effective and more efficient and more cost-efficient. And the 2 deals that you just saw are both -- Brian commented on the note deal, but on the APN deal, and they've been terrific to receive net cash proceeds of well over $200 million for assets that we don't consolidate within the company. And by the way, we also have an ongoing license win with them with iHeart in Australia and New Zealand. So we can continue to be involved in those, and we can continue to get a management fee or a consulting fee from those. So it was really a win-win for both sides, and you're going to see us continue to, without being specific, look at our balance sheet and see if we can do things to more efficiently run the company, which will be better for all of you and all of us as stakeholders.

Operator

Operator

And the next question will come from the line of Lance Vitanza.

Lance W. Vitanza - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I wanted to start with another iHeart question if I could. Listener hours up 29%, I'd imagine that, that mostly reflects new users. But do you have any sense for whether existing iHeart users are listening or using the service streaming more, less or about the same relative to what they were doing, say, 6 months ago?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

More, and more mobile. We were up -- I think mobile was 52% of our listening hours last quarter. So I think that tells you that -- the direction that we're going, probably a bit more.

Lance W. Vitanza - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

So do you think you're taking users away from Pandora and some of these other services? Or are you just getting your share of new users as they try streaming for the first time? Or is it a bit of both?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

The answer to that -- I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not sure anybody knows the answer to that question. And that's why I try to give you the stats on a little bit -- just to go back in terms of a little bit with Pandora. Remember, we've got digital. Still, as I said earlier, we're radio, okay, first and foremost. And I go back to what Pandora is. Pandora is a playlist. It's really apples and oranges out there. It's a feature. And look, we have feature. We have something called Perfect For, which is a feature on our application, which is -- I'm sorry, it's a feature on our iHeart offering out there. And Pandora's got a feature, and they've done a nice job with their feature. But if you look at iHeart, we've got almost 70% brand awareness in the last 2 or 3 or 4 -- for a period of time. I gave you the overall numbers that we've talked about. But we still believe that 90% of Americans say that they have both a music collection and a radio, and they like to have both, and they use them for different listening experience. And so what the playlist is, is what we call custom radio, not freestanding. And as I mentioned, we have Perfect For. And again, no different that we've seen really no impact on sales, which is a question that continues to be out there. Also, just to get on the table, since everybody's kind of to scratching at the edges here on Pandora, so I might as well add to that upfront because I am sure it's going to come in a couple of minutes. We haven't seen any of the impact on local digital sales. We've got 3,000 sellers across the country. We've been doing this for a long period of time. And so -- and I also mentioned the point about the reach, with Pandora having self-reported information versus ours, which is Arbitron/Nielsen.

Lance W. Vitanza - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

You gave us a lot of great data. One other piece that I would love to get, can you tell us what iHeart's listener hours were for any recent period?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Sorry, can you say that again?

Lance W. Vitanza - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Yes, wondering what the actual total number of listener hours on iHeart were for any recent period. You've given us the growth rates, and I'm wondering if you can give us the absolute amount of hours.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Yes, let me get back to you on that. I don't have that offhand, but let me get back on that.

Lance W. Vitanza - CRT Capital Group LLC, Research Division

Analyst

And then just, Brian, maybe a question for you if I could, and I apologize if I missed this earlier. But could you give me a sense for where pro forma interest expense stands now with the issuance of the 14s of '21 and then maybe assuming you repay the 5 1/2s of '14?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Yes, I think we've given the general guidance on the deck that we attached that interest expense should be around the $1.6 billion level.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from the line of Davis Hebert.

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I wanted to ask a question about the political. A lot of the TV guys are saying 2012 is going to be a tough comp, being -- with 2012 being a presidential year. Haven't heard as much on the radio side. Do you think '14 can match '12 in terms of political revenue?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Well, I -- look, '14 as you know, is a political non-presidential year like 2010. So I do think we're going to have a very strong year in political. I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks that to really force and drive political revenue in '14, we've created a new political strategy unit, which is led by Nathan Daschle. For those of you that don't know Nathan's background, he's a well-known political strategist, former -- and a former Democratic Governors Association executive director, and he's really focused on ensuring that our campaigns know about our capabilities and know about the breadth across the country. And remember, because of who we are with -- and this goes back to some of the questions about between terrestrial and digital and radio, we have segmentation and targeting capabilities for both terrestrial and radio. We're able to produce psychographic targeting and some demographic targeting, and we continue to expand those capabilities and enhance the offering to advertisers. So when you look at our position, I think we're incredibly well positioned because of our extensive reach and scale, coupled with -- I just talked about in terms of our psychographic targeting capabilities that enable us to -- helping advertisers target the right people at the right time. So we expect a big year on political.

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, that's great. And then on the Q1 pacing, focusing on the Media and Entertainment side, I think you said the station business was pacing 3.2% and total segment revenue, 2.7%. Just curious, what is dragging that number down a little bit? Is it network or traffic or any color there?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

No, because -- this is why I hate giving -- did I say this, like, 3 times, I hate giving pacing? This is why I hate pacing data, because it's just a snapshot in a divvy of time. I mean, we have -- we are all -- Bob and I and the rest of the management team and Tim Castelli and Tom Schurr and Matt Martin, we're all -- we look at pacings, but we look at pipeline reports. We're in constant touch of what's out there, so I wouldn't read anything into that at all, so...

Davis Hebert - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, great. And you guys have made a lot of progress on the 2016 bank debt wall. I think you still have less than $2 billion left. Any thoughts about taking additional steps this year on that?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Brian, do you want to...

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Yes, sure. I'm happy to talk about that. We look at 2016, and the number, the $2 billion, $2.4 billion, I think, in total. $2 billion of that senior secured debt is top of our capital structure. We've refinanced, like, $7 billion of that last year. So we feel pretty comfortable that, that can be refinanced, and we'll continue to watch the markets and be opportunistic. More than anything else, it's probably the repricing of that debt earlier than you have to, and additional cash interest you'd be generating. So I think you balance that against the market. I suspect sometime during 2014, we'll take steps to do something about it, but feel pretty good that that's refinanceable. Where our focus has been lately and the actions we've taken are the non-senior debt. And so in 2016, we have $470-something million, I think, of junior debt that matures, and we'll continue to take the necessary measures to pay that off or refinance that as we get closer to maturities. But I think as far as '14 and '15 are concerned, we have taken some actions, and we continue to look at other liquidity levers that we have to ensure that we have sufficient liquidity to manage through all these debt maturities.

Operator

Operator

And the next question will come from the line of Tracy Young.

Tracy B. Young - Evercore Partners Inc., Research Division

Analyst

I've got 2 questions related to Outdoor. If you could give some more color on France, I know it's a big market for you in Europe. Is that the biggest drag right now for you? And also, were you down? Could you just remind us if you were down in all of the quarters for 2013? And then the second question relates to your strategic investments. They were certainly lower in 4Q. Are there any expectations that we'll hear more about call-outs for 2014, or is that pretty much done?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

So the first question, I think, yes, was on France, and you broke up a little bit after the second and the third. So maybe just on the first question on France, look, France, as I think everybody, all of us doing business in France, it continues to be a challenged market. And I'm not going to say it's the biggest drag, but clearly, it's a significant drag on the overall results. On the bright side, we're really seeing some strength in the U.K., and we're seeing some strength in Norway. So we feel very, very good about that. And one of the reasons I gave when I talked about how excited we are about Outdoor, if you go back to the 2 examples I gave of the creative stuff that William and his team is doing is in Norway in terms of the bookstore capabilities and in the virtual bookstore and in London with the Chiswick Towers.

Tracy B. Young - Evercore Partners Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay, great. The second question was relating to the strategic investments that you had in fourth quarter. They were lower on a year-over-year basis. Are there any expectations that we'll hear a call-out on 2014 for the Outdoor business, or are we pretty much done?

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

On strategic investments, I think, we're always -- I mean, I don't think we're ever done, quite frankly. I mean, we're always -- your question on strategic investments, we're always looking to be more efficient. And the only criteria lens that we have that we look through is can we make more money, how do we make more money for all of our stakeholders out there, whether it's the Outdoor businesses, the CCM+E. So I don't think we're ever, ever done. Every single day, we look at that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And I show a question from the line of Paul Carpenter [ph].

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

I have 2 questions. The first is can you explain to us what the tax implications would be if you sold CCO equity to the public, just the fact that your additional paid-in capital is now at about 0 and any proceeds from that would be fully taxable? And then secondly, can you talk about what your expectations are for the intercompany notes during the quarter? You paid -- it's sort of down, and then it looks like you reborrowed most of what you paid back down.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Brian, do you want to take that?

Brian Coleman

Analyst

Yes, I can take the second one. I don't think we've disclosed any information on tax impact. I'm sorry, can you hear me, Rich? I'm getting some feedback.

Richard J. Bressler

Analyst

Yes. Yes, go ahead, Brian.

Brian Coleman

Analyst

So I'll address the second question. The first one, I don't think we've given any public disclosure around the tax impact of selling CCO or CCO equity. With respect to the intercompany note, we have the demand. In Q4, $200 million was repaid and then dividended out by CCOH. I -- the question was about plans with respect to the note. I don't know that there's plans per se. A lot of it has -- if you take the $200 million reduction in Q4, it has -- the note balance has gone up, not by $200 million but by $150 million, $160 million. That's just normal operation of the note. It's comprised of normal free cash flow generation during the quarter by Outdoor. There was a special dividend that Clear Media paid of $90 million, $45 million of which went to Clear Channel Outdoor as a 50% owner of Clear Media. And that amount was subsequently swept up under the note and made up another difference. And so this is just normal operations. The Clear Media dividend was kind of a onetime event. This was a special dividend. But you should expect the note to continue to grow, reflecting the free cash flow generation by Outdoor. There's nothing special or planned with respect to the operation of the note. And so I think that answers the second question. I don't think we don't have anything on the first one.

Effie Epstein

Analyst

No, we don't. Thank you, Brian, for taking that question. That's all the time we have today for Q&A. Thank you, everyone, for joining, and we really appreciate you being with us today.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive TeleConference. You may now disconnect.