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Entravision Communications Corporation (EVC)

Q2 2022 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 3, 2022

$3.85

+0.00%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Entravision Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kimberly Esterkin of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Kimberly Esterkin

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Entravision's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Walter Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Young, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I must inform you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. Please refer to Entravision's SEC filings for a list of risks and uncertainties that could impact actual results. This call is the property of Entravision Communications Corporation. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the expressed written consent of Entravision Communications Corporation is strictly prohibited. Also, this call will include non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP measures in today's press release. The press release is available on the company's website and was filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. In addition, all pro forma figures, including revenue, operating expenses and consolidated adjusted EBITDA noted throughout the prepared remarks, include the contributions from MediaDonuts and 365 Digital in the prior-year period. I will now turn the call over to Walter Ulloa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you, Kimberly, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for Entravision's second quarter 2022 earnings call. Entravision's performance in the second quarter capped off a strong first half of 2022. Net revenue for the second quarter totaled $221.7 million, up 24% year-over-year. On a pro forma basis, revenue increased 16% over the prior-year period. The continued growth of our Digital segment combined with improvements in our core television and audio businesses drove the strength during the quarter. For the six months ended June 30 2022, revenue totaled $418.9 million up 28% year-over-year. On a pro forma basis, revenue for the first six months of 2022 increased 20% over the prior-year period. Similar to the quarter, year-to-date revenue benefited from growth in our Digital segment, as well as improvements in our core television and audio businesses. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled $22.5 million for the second quarter up 26% year-over-year. What is so impressive about our second quarter EBITDA growth is that we had $5.4 million of non-returning revenue from the prior-year same period, and we still managed to grow EBITDA of 26% in the quarter. For the six months ended June 30 2022, consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled $40.6 million up 27% year-over-year. Even as our top line continues to grow, we have successfully maintain a lean cost structure, having right sized our expenses over the last few years. Despite current macro conditions, we do not currently see a need to make any additional expense cuts. That said, expense management will continue to remain core to our operations as it undoubtedly drives our EBITDA free cash flow and ability to provide returns to our shareholders. Speaking of shareholder returns, I am pleased to announce that our Board of Directors has approved a cash dividend for the second quarter of…

Christopher Young

Management

Thanks, Walter. And good afternoon everyone. As Walter discussed revenue for Q2 2022 totaled $221.7 million, an increase of 24% from the second quarter of 2021. For our digital segment revenue totaled $174.4 million in the second quarter of 34% year over year and up 22% On a pro forma basis as compared to Q2 of 2021. For our TV segment, total revenue was $32.4 million in the second quarter, down 5% year-over-year, excluding political core advertising revenue was down 20% year-over-year. However, excluding the revenue impact from the three discontinued Univision affiliates, total revenue increased 11% year-over-year. Retransmission revenue for the quarter totaled $9 million, which was down 3% year-over-year, mainly due to the loss of three Univision affiliates. Lastly, for our audio segment, revenue totaled $14.9 million in the quarter up 6% from the prior year, excluding political core audio revenue was up 2% over Q2 of last year. Operating expenses in the second quarter of 2022 totaled $47.4 million up 14% from $41.4 million in the prior year period. Excluding operating expenses related to our Media Donuts and 365 Digital acquisitions, operating expenses were up 9% primarily due to our revenue growth and increases in . Corporate expenses increased by 16% to totaled $8.5 million for the quarter compared to $7.3 million in the same quarter of last year. The primary drivers of corporate expense increases were increases in non-cash stock-based compensation expenses and salary expenses. During the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 600,000 shares under our $20 million share repurchase program, bringing our total repurchases to date to 1.8 million shares or a total of $11.3 million. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled $22.5 million for the second quarter up 26% from the $17.8 million in the prior year period. Free cash flow as defined in our earnings…

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thanks, Chris. As I previously highlighted, we are very pleased to see continued growth across all our Digital platforms. In just the past two years alone, our Digital segment revenue has grown by over 13 times. As I mentioned on the last call, we made a strategic investment in Jack of Digital, which has an exclusive commercial partnership with TikTok in Pakistan. Jack of Digital taps into a market of over 100 million connected consumers. And as part of a vibrant emerging economy with strong advertising spend, these elements fit ideally with the core aspects of our Digital mission that I spoke about earlier. Not only are we entering into representation partnerships with new social and technology platforms and new territories, but we're also cross leveraging organically our current partnerships from one region to another. For example, we expanded our partnership with the in-gaming advertising platform Anzu, which we now represent through Entravision 365 Digital in South Africa, Entravision MediaDonuts in Southeast Asia and Entravision Cisneros Interactive in Latin America. Another example is our recent exclusive partnership between Entravision Cisneros Interactive and Televisa Univision. Entravision Cisneros Interactive has been appointed as the exclusive advertising sales partner for VIX, the over-the-top platform of Televisa Univision in 10 Latin American markets. Given our solid balance sheet, we remain active and continue to look for opportunities to invest or acquire companies that will further enhance the digital services we provide to our growing global customer base. As we look to the second half of 2022, we believe that political advertising spend will also be a key driver of revenue growth. While we expected strong political growth in 2022, the amount spent by the political industry in the first two quarters, still months away from the midterm elections was a very pleasant surprise. This increase in political ad spend provides further evidence that both political parties understand the importance of Latino voters to local and national elections. In fact, a study by the Pew Center firm that in battleground states in the 2020 election, as a share of eligible voters, Latino voters grew more than any other racial or ethnic group. We believe this bodes well for our television and audio segments in the back half of this year, as political parties rev up their ad spending to the midterm elections. While macro conditions including inflation and recessionary concerns may pose some challenges to the broader markets as we progress through 2022, with a strong balance sheet, streamline expense structure, and a team of some of the best professionals in our industry, Entravision is well positioned for continued success. I want to extend my gratitude to our Entravision teams around the world for their continuous efforts and performance. And I want to thank our shareholders for your support. That concludes our prepared remarks. Chris, and I would like to open up the call for your question, operator?

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much, sir. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. We have our first question from the line of Michael Kupinski with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Congratulations on a strong quarter. I have a couple of questions. I know that you recently expanded your footprint in Latin America. I was just wondering, have you now expanded what I would consider the low hanging fruit? What are the opportunities still left in Latin America? What countries do you still think you might be able to expand into, if you can just give us a sense of the opportunity to grow outside of the regions that you currently have?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Michael, it's Walter. Yes, we did expand in our Meta partnership in two new territories in Latin America. As far as what else might be available to us, so that's something that Meta has to decide. We work very closely with them. We try to -- we do the best we can to represent their platform in all of our Latin American markets. And like I said, we certainly try to mirror their professionalism and give the platform the best representation possible. Beyond that, we are in contact with them regularly. And we're always looking for new opportunities in other parts of the world to represent Meta.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

I know that, a lot of investors focus on the U.S. economy and how that's affecting advertising. It's particularly national advertising. I was just wondering if given that you are in such strong growth markets, and such a strong growth industry in digital and a lot of these other countries, are you seeing any weakness coming from any particular regions around the globe, what we are seeing in the United States and what? Thank you.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, I think this inflationary condition in the United States is worldwide. And that certainly has, it dampens people's ability to consume more, spend more. So certainly, I think the issues that we're facing here in the United States with a slowdown in consumer spending is prevalent throughout the world.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got you. Is there any particular region that you're noticing that weaknesses, that or I guess are softening of the growth that you're seeing in digital?

Walter Ulloa

Management

No, no, not at this time. I mean we monitor all of our markets and our territories as closely as we can, and trying to get a good sense of where the markets headed. But right now, we're not seeing any call it any weakness, but we'll continue to monitor it. I think the economic situation, not only in the U.S., but in the world is something that will continue to change and be more volatile than we would like.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

And then my last question, obviously, you have a pristine balance sheet, lots of cash, which is in a great position to be in, especially if we are heading into recession, there are a lot of media companies out there that are very levered, look like at this point on, are you seeing anything that's now crossing your desk that may have go when the economy was looking pretty strong? Just kind of like looking at the pipeline of opportunities and then if you can just talk a little bit about where you're seeing the opportunities? Are they in the digital space? Are they in other areas that you might consider?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, I think you were dropping off a little bit of microphone, it was having trouble hearing all of your question, but we spend a lot of time analyzing the opportunities in the Digital space. That's something that's kind of a constant that runs through the company. We continue to look at opportunities in all parts of the world, particularly those opportunities that complement our current infrastructure that we've put in place.

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got you. At this point, you wouldn't be looking at media, like traditional media, like television or radio, or other things of that nature?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, it has to be something really compelling. I mean, once in a while, things come across our desks here on the traditional media side, and we look at it closely and we evaluate it and see if it can contribute to our growth. And if it can't, and if we don't we move on. But that's the same way. That's the same approach we use with our digital, any digital opportunities as well, how well will it fit into the current strategy of the company with regards to our digital assets? What's the culture like of the new company that we might be looking at and when most importantly, what are the prospects for growth?

Michael Kupinski

Analyst

Got you. All right. That's all I have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have next question from the line of James Dix with Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, gentlemen, Couple questions. I think and correct me if I'm wrong over the past quarter, you had a couple conference presentations, where I think the message was that you were still comfortable with the business outlook that you had going into the year. Now that you've reported your second quarter results, would you speak to that again? I mean, do you still feel basically the similar level of comfort with your business outlook that you had going into the year?

Christopher Young

Management

We do, James. We like what we see so far in the current quarter. And then fourth quarter, obviously is still a long ways out, but we're still tracking to what we had budgeted as far as the end of last year.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay. And would you've announced since then, a few territorial expansions, which you've talked about earlier in the call, would results from there be incremental to that?

Christopher Young

Management

Would they be incremental? No, probably not. That's kind of potentially could serve as an offset if there is any perceived weakness with the core operations. So we're sticking with that number and not really adding anything incremental from those two new territories.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay, got it.

Walter Ulloa

Management

And I will add, James, just to what Chris had. It takes a while to develop these countries, it doesn't happen overnight. So it'll be at least a six month, two year process before we start to see some real returns on all of our work.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay, okay. And then your digital revenue, I would say maybe a little -- was a little bit below what I was expecting in the quarter there. I know previously, you had mentioned a few headwinds, you might have been seeing, are there any headwinds that you would call out for digital that you saw in the second quarter?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Any headwinds? No, I mean, we still like what we're seeing, maybe the Meta business, the growth has subsided a little bit, we are comping against tougher numbers deeper into the year last year, so that directionally is something that we're tracking, but no, otherwise. We like what we're seeing.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. And then one housekeeping thing as far as television, I think at the end of your pacing discussion, you talked about pacing up 6%, excluding the three affiliate changes you had at the end of last year, I just want to be clear, is that a pacing for core advertising or all revenue?

Walter Ulloa

Management

That includes political.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay, but is that an advertising only number? Or is that a total revenue number?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Yes, it's an advertising only number, including political, but not including trends, yes.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay. Great. And then the pace of the buyback was a little bit slower in the second quarter than the first. Anything, any particular reason for that or was that just kind of the brakes of the windows and things like that?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Well, we're watching the market carefully. We had 10b5-1 in place with specific buying criteria. Many oftentimes, that criteria would never hit, we'll look at tweaking that when the windows open and seeing if we can make more progress on that front.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then the last one for me is, are you seeing or do you think that this digital business is seeing any impact from the strong U.S. dollar in various markets? I know you've indicated in the past, I think most of your media representation contracts are denominated in dollars. But I still wonder about some of the advertisers just locally there. Whether they're feeling any, any pressure from the strong dollar and whether that's flowing through it all too, your partners and therefore to you or do you think that's really a non-issue?

Walter Ulloa

Management

I think it's a non-issue. Look, it's something really we're watching. But we -- it's tough to say whether that's really happening or not, but right now, I think it's safe to say we continue to like what we say.

James Dix

Analyst · Industry Capital Research. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have next question from line of Lisa Springer with Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Robert Maltbie

Analyst · Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Hello gentlemen, Robert Maltbie filling in for Lisa Springer. Couple of questions. Firstly, in light of the headwinds experience during the internet, notably Facebook, or better as we now call them Snapchat, Roku recently. How have you been able to navigate those extreme headwinds, and what are strategies you may deploy to address the near future versus that? And secondly, is there a consideration or a thought about untethering the lower growth assets, namely radio television from the higher growth digital assets and businesses, possibly in the form of a I don't know tracker or a spin off? Thank you.

Walter Ulloa

Management

So it's Howard, right.

Robert Maltbie

Analyst · Singular Research. Please go ahead.

Robert.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Robert, thank you for your question. There's no discussion here internally to divest or spin off any of our broadcast assets. We as you may know, we've been certainly executing those assets for a great period of time, but we still see growth in the Latino market, it's one of the most call it dynamic segments of our population. You can see what's happening in political. We're seeing more political dollars than ever, in our history. A lot of that's due to the growth of the Latino voter electorate, which are more -- what's both parties now are continuing to invest more in. So now that's not in the plans. As far as our digital business, we continue to provide, looking to provide a better service to our not only the platform's that we partner with, but also our advertisers. And that means more training for our sales professionals, more training for our advertising and agencies and clients. Better data, we're working right now on a product where we're going to provide to our advertisers and agencies that will give them a lot more data on their campaigns. We're certainly going to look work, use that data to help them better execute their campaigns. And in the end, we think this will result in more sales for them. So that'll be a benefit to us as well blocking and tackle. Hello?

Operator

Operator

Sir do you have any further questions, Robert?

Robert Maltbie

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you very much. No further questions.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have a next question from the line of Edward Reilly with EF Hutton. Please go ahead.

Edward Reilly

Analyst · EF Hutton. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thank you for taking my question. I think I heard that core TV pacings were down 14%. I was just wondering if you could maybe break that down between the national or a local level for me?

Walter Ulloa

Management

Yes, the national, local are both pacing down 9%. And then you've got political reversing all of that.

Edward Reilly

Analyst · EF Hutton. Please go ahead.

Okay, got you. And congrats on the close of the jacket, digital acquisition. Wondering how material the effects of the acquisition will be on the financials going forward.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Yes, it'll be negligible this year. It's a small acquisition, not material. But we do expect high growth out of that operation over time. We're excited about it. But no need to re -- or just to change your models at this point.

Edward Reilly

Analyst · EF Hutton. Please go ahead.

Okay. All right. Great. Thank you, guys.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you. You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have next question from the line of Howard Rosencrans with Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Hi, Chris. Hi, Walter. Good to be back on your calls.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Thank you. Good to have you back.

Christopher Young

Management

Good to hear your voice.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to get first clarification on that pacings number. You said it was minus 14%. But that includes the affiliates you lost in TV, right?

Walter Ulloa

Management

That is correct.

Christopher Young

Management

That's correct.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Okay, so I believe you said pro forma is plus 6%. And that includes political, and I guess political is probably crowding out core, so we shouldn't. So we probably shouldn't get into a deeper breakdown on that. Is that fair?

Christopher Young

Management

That's fair. Yes. Inventory is getting grounded.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Okay, so my question is regarding digital. So you said so if I have it correctly. So in the second quarter digital was up 34%. And pro forma, it was up 22%. Is that right?

Christopher Young

Management

Yes, I believe that's right. Are you looking for prior year numbers to reconcile the front.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

No, no not looking to reconcile so as up '22 perform. So then you said that Q3 the piecing is plus 24%. So just can you give us a ballpark of sort of what that's running pro forma in digital?

Christopher Young

Management

Yeah, that is basically that is, but it's not quite pro forma. But the only acquisition that has yet to be tucked in at that point last year was 365 Digital. And that's a very small deal, Howard. So that percentage won't likely change on a pro forma basis.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Okay, so that's certainly encouraging, particularly that. And then I'm going to go back to the tail of what I think was the singular question. If you addressed it, I apologize. So basically, social media is having a tough go. Now import. I believe it reflects that that one social media vehicle is eating the pie of another social media vehicle. But that's just my general perception. Maybe there's just an industry wide slowing in social media? I'm asking for your color in general on that. But so with the slowing, or is there a share change? Is it just is the social media spend just getting spread out more? And how do you or is it just a slowdown in social maybe a better aspect first?

Christopher Young

Management

Well, I think it's a combination of factors. I mean, if you look at the reports that have come out recently from the big tech platforms here, it's a combination of a competition, certainly. And just I think, just overall, the economic condition that they're looking at, is changing quarter-to-quarter. So I think those are the two biggest factors, the macro competition.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

So it's okay, so it's both factors. So then my question to you is, on a global basis, that specifically in the markets, you're competing in I guess it's, for most it's the biggest market is, if I'm not mistaken, far and away the biggest market is Latin America. And I know you have representation with Meta, I don't really know what your representation is Meta, vis-à-vis TikTok. But are those mediums losing share? Like they are in, again is it -- that there's this TikTok taking from Meta is are you seeing the same sort of conditions there? So you would see, because based on your pro forma growth, it doesn't seem like, like you're being impacted as of yet. So, is it not the same in those global markets?

Christopher Young

Management

Well, I think a couple of things, one, we focus on emerging territories with a strong connected consumer base. And so our markets that we operate in are maybe not as mature as the bigger markets that the platforms that we're all aware of operating Meta, Google, etc. But so that might be part of it. And that there's still more growth left in our markets. But certainly we're all fighting for the ad pie. So It's fierce.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Okay, and do you expect, I don't know if it's seasonality, or it's just continued Q-to-Q growth to, I would assume to continue to drive your EBITDA on a quarter-to-quarter basis higher, because I assume your margin in -- your margin, I figured was about 7% in digital. So I assume there's really going to be, I doubt there's margin compression on the near horizon. So I is it fair to say that that should drive up? There should be some nice flow through and drive up the EBITDA Q-to-Q meaningfully?

Christopher Young

Management

Yes. Digital margins were 7.3%. Q2 we expect that to continue to ramp up. Q4 is the peak quarter for digital. So and sequentially yes, revenue is expected here internally to continue to improve quarter-by-quarter for the balance of the year.

Howard Rosencrans

Analyst · Value Advisory. Please go ahead.

Gentlemen, thank you very much and glad I'm back. Thank you.

Christopher Young

Management

Thanks, Howard. Welcome back.

Walter Ulloa

Management

Glad you're back too Howard. Thank you for your questions.

Walter Ulloa

Management

So thank you again, everyone for joining us today on our second quarter call. We look forward to sharing our progress with all of you in the third quarter when we -- on our third quarter call in November, when we'll announce our third quarter earnings. Operator?

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much sir. Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.