Keith A. Istre
Analyst · those discussed in this call in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as updated by its quarterly reports on form 10-Q. Lamar refers you to those documents. Lamar's first quarter 2014 earnings release, which contains information required by Regulation G regarding certain non-GAAP financial measures, was furnished to the SEC on a Form 8-K this morning and is available on Lamar's website, www.lamar.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sean Reilly. Mr. Reilly, you may begin
Good morning, everyone. Just to add a little color on a couple of the operating metrics and a couple other items in the press release. Our pro forma revenue, as you saw, increased 1.9% for the quarter. That's reported on a monthly basis. Just to remind everybody, last quarter we started showing our actual as-reported numbers on a daily basis, but we're still reporting pro forma operating results on a monthly basis, as we always have. On the consolidated expenses, which includes corporate overhead, our pro forma growth there was 2.7% for the quarter. Remember, on the last quarter, we had guided to approximately a 2% to 3% growth in expenses for the year on a pro forma basis. Corporate overhead by itself increased 11% or approximately $1.5 million. Half of that increase was REIT related. And we will continue to have REIT-related expenses going forward for the rest of this year. Not sure which quarters it will hit, but we're looking at probably about another $1.5 million before we're done in 2014. And of course, EBITDA was up slightly for the quarter as well. Next, as you saw in the press release, we have included comparative FFO and AFFO metrics for the first quarter of '14 and '13. I'd like to caution everyone from trying to extrapolate what the full year's number will be by annualizing Q1 of '14 performance. Our business has a seasonal bias to it, as do the other outdoor operators in the industry in general. And the first quarter of each year is always the lowest quarter of the year for revenue and EBITDA performance. Last, just to touch on the refinancing transaction that we summarized in the press release. At the end of April, we called the $400 million high-yield note tranche that's been outstanding since 2010. It carried a coupon of 7 7/8%. We replaced those notes with a new Term A bank loan and a draw on our revolving credit facility. On a net annual basis, this will reduce our interest costs by $23 million. On a pro forma basis, our interest costs would have been approximately $6 million less in the first quarter if the refinancing had taken place January 1. For 2014, we're projecting our total cash interest cost to be approximately $100 million. And for '15, it will be approximately $90 million. To put that in perspective, in 2013, our cash interest cost was $131 million. We had some very -- we issued some high-yield notes in 2012 at very attractive coupons, all in the 5% range, all 10-year money. That is long-term money, fixed and locked in. And we also continued to pay down outstanding debt with our free cash flow in '13. So we've made some really positive strides in knocking down our interest cost, and it should continue to hold going forward. Sean?