Earnings Labs

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (LYV)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

$155.31

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Angela, and I'll be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Live Nation Entertainment Fourth Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. Before we begin, Live Nation has asked me to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including statements relating to the company's anticipated financial performance, business prospects, new developments and similar matters. Please refer to Live Nation's SEC filings, including the Risk Factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings, on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K for a description of risk and uncertainties that could impact the actual results. Live Nation will also refer to some non-GAAP measures on this call. In accordance with SEC Regulation G, Live Nation has provided a full reconciliation of the most comparable GAAP measure in earnings release. The release, reconciliations and other financial or statistical information to be discussed on this call can be found under the Investor Relations tab on investors.livenationentertainment.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Michael Rapino, President and Chief Financial Officer (sic) [Chief Executive Officer] of Live Nation Entertainment. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good afternoon and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2015 conference call. 2015 closed as a record year for Live Nation, driving both financial and operating results. Revenue, AOI and free cash flow all grew 11% for the year, and delivered record ticket volume of 530 million tickets. We continue to see the tremendous…

Joe Berchtold - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Thanks, Michael. Looking at our business segments, first Concerts, for the full year, concert revenue was up 11% and AOI up 36%, both at constant currency. We grew attendance by 8% to a record 63 million fans, once again promoting 20 of the top 25 global tours, including U2, Madonna, One Direction, and Ariana Grande. And we've continued our global expansion with three new countries, including adding promoters in Germany, the second largest European concert market. For the year, looking at the markets, in North America, we grew attendance by 9% to almost 44 million fans with show counts up 6% and attendance per show up 3%. In arena and amphitheater, attendance were each up by over 1 million fans. Internationally, attendance was up 7%, driven by arena attendance growing over 1 million fans. Globally, we continued growing our festival portfolio, increasing attendance by 1.5 million to over 6 million for the year. Following our acquisition of Bonnaroo, we now own four of the top five festivals in North America. In addition to growing global market share through more shows, more fans and more markets, in 2015 we increased our onsite fan monetization at amphitheaters and festivals by 6% to $19.50 per fan. Looking specifically at the fourth quarter, concert revenue was up 17% and AOI up 30%, both at constant currency. These results were driven by a 15% increase in attendance to over 15 million fans, with a 13% increase in show count. Of this, North America attendance grew by 9% in the quarter, largely from festival and amphitheater activity, and international attendance was up 26% driven by arena activity. As we move into 2016, through mid-February, ticket sales are up as Michael said, and our confirmed show pipeline for amphitheaters, arenas and stadiums is up 15%. And we…

Kathy Willard - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks, Joe, and good afternoon, everyone. Starting with our results for the fourth quarter, revenue is $1.8 billion, up 15% from the fourth quarter of 2014, and AOI is $111 million, up 54% over last year, both at constant currency. As reported revenue is $1.7 billion and AOI is $101 million. Free cash flow is $10 million for the quarter. All of our segments delivered revenue growth for the quarter. Concerts delivered the majority of the growth from higher festival and amphitheater activity in North America, and increased arena activity internationally. Ticketing revenue was up due to both higher primary and secondary ticket volume. Reported AOI for the fourth quarter was $101 million, up 40% from the fourth quarter last year. FX impact for the quarter reduced AOI by $10 million, or 9%. The majority of our AOI growth in the quarter came from the Concerts and Artist Nation segments. Concerts improved from increased show activity, and Artist Nation AOI was driven by higher management commissions and increased profitability within new service lines. Our operating loss in the fourth quarter was $34 million on a constant currency basis, up 17% compared to the normalized loss of $41 million last year that excluded non-cash charges of $146 million. FX impacts in the quarter increased the operating loss by $7 million to $41 million on a reported basis. Our net loss for the quarter was $71 million at constant currency, a 12% improvement from the normalized net loss last year of $81 million, again excluding non-cash charges. The FX impact for the fourth quarter increased the net loss by $7 million to $78 million on a reported basis. Moving to the full year results, revenue is $7.6 billion, AOI is $616 million and free cash flow is $362 million, each up 11%…

Operator

Operator

And we will first go to Amy Yong with Macquarie. Amy Yong - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: I have two questions, one on ticketing and one on ad sponsorship. So StubHub has talked about growth slowing in 2016 and that probably bodes well for you. But can you give us some additional color on market share and progress in the secondary market? And then secondly, as you expand globally, how are your conversations changing with your sponsors and ad buyers? Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll do the sponsorship, which is the easier one, and we'll look into ticketing, which revolves around share. Our Sponsorship business, we have as we said 900 sponsors. Our business of those 900, a majority of those are a local or a regional business. So when we open an office in South Africa, our first priority is to build a local sponsorship team to take advantage of the regional Coca-Cola or Audi dealership ad dollars, who are usually the easiest and more likely to spend on an onsite regional basis. So every time we open up a regional office, we get to enter a new business called the regional advertising business. And then the top 10% of our sponsors, the Citibanks, the American Expresses, the Pepsis of the world, the more times we walk into top kind of 15, 20 cities around the world, we start to be able to expand our U.S. deal, which started in American Express, but then became a U.S./Canada deal, then it became a U.S., Canada and European deal, and now we've just added Australia to it. So as we build, we're able to attract those global brands and provide them a global footprint. If you think about it, really the only other sport that can do that is kind of FIFA World Cup or the Olympics. Most of everything else is a local business. So we do provide that brand like Anheuser-Busch, who we're talking to on a global basis, a global platform solution. And we see that as a big opportunity in how we'll keep our double-digit growth. On secondary.

Joe Berchtold - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. On secondary, obviously it's a little bit of guesswork on the market share, Amy. I think our take would be that our market share is now in the 20s. From StubHub's reported numbers, seems like they're likely in the 50s. Seems that we both grew in 2015 faster than overall market, so continued to build share. We remain very positive on our positioning and our ability to continue to drive our growth and share overall. When you look at the asset base that we have, the partnerships with the teams and the leagues and the very rapid growth that we've seen on Ticketmaster with our integrated inventory, and now that we're in 13 countries and at varying levels of integration between the primary and secondary, I think we remain very positive about 2016 with that business. Amy Yong - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now go to Jason Bazinet with Citi.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

I'm going to break the rules here a little bit, but maybe you'll indulge me, because I'm really asking you a question. That's my job, not yours. I am perplexed by the way your stock has traded sort of over the last two months. And I don't know if you have any insight in terms of why you think the market is nervous about something, and if at all you think these results have sort of addressed whatever the buy side's concerns may be. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think there's a whole bunch of debate out there on what's happened in the last couple months in the market overall. So we certainly have felt it. We talk to our top shareholders, the long players. Our long shareholders seem to understand that our fundamental business is strong with great growth potential. So we can't give you any perfect insight into what would have been the reason for any decline over the last couple months. But as we say, we're just thrilled that going into this quarter we were going to put down a record 2015 on our way to hopefully a record 2016. So we've been public 10 years now and we've lived long enough to know that the stock price will follow the good results eventually in between the noise in the middle. So we're very confident, we've got a very strong business that we'll continue to grow, put the cash flow on the table and be a really good option for a investment in the entertainment or the music space.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we will now go to Ben Mogil with Stifel. Kevin Lee Hon Siong - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Hi. Thank you. This is actually Kevin Lee for Ben. Thank you for taking the question. A few years ago, you gave multiple-year guidance and the drivers behind that. Not expecting it – this on this call, but when you look at the core engines of Ticketing and Sponsorship, I just want to dig a little deeper. What takes Ticketing from, say, the current level to, say, $425 million or so of AOI? Is it more cost efficiency, more primary or secondary volume? And similarly, on Sponsorship, what kind of gets it to the $325 million level? Is it more impressions, volume, or is it just moving up the rate card? Thank you. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Yes. I think we're doing a good job, at least in this call, of suggesting that we believe we'll repeat history in terms of our growth rate. So if you looked at our stock over the last three years and what we've been able to do on a revenue and a cash flow perspective, we see no reason why we can't continue to grow this business at the similar rates. In order to grow, I mean number one is we have an incredible unique business model at this point. With our scale leveraged across our flywheel, we're able to drive some more concerts, which drives a bigger audience, which drives more sponsors, which drives more ticketing fees. So you're really starting to see the flywheel effect of our business. So how will we grow Ticketing? Both ways you mentioned. We'll continue to be more efficient as our new and improved technology comes to life, and we…

Operator

Operator

We will now go to David Joyce with Evercore ISI.

David Carl Joyce - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thank you. I was hoping you could provide some more color on some recent transactions. In South Africa, how much business were you already flowing through there and what does this new deal do for you? Is it solely promotions? I know you spoke earlier of the opportunity to open a sponsorship office. But if you could help us understand what that does for your growth, that sort of thing. And then secondly on the Sacramento markets, you acquired a property. I'm not sure if it's actually a real estate deal, but it's something that'll be programmed or continue to be programmed like House of Blues. What does that do for you as opposed to a much bigger, say, festival acquisition where you start to see positive results after a year? Thank you. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I'll work backwards. Sacramento, I was surprised how much press I did see on that one too, given the size of it. So that would have been our theater and, I mean they must have very good PR people at the Ace of Spades that we're doing the deal with. But it's a theater club. We have theater and club division. We would book/manage over 100 theaters or clubs, kind of in the 1,000 to 3,000 range. It's a strong category for us globally. And my team, under Ron Bension, is continually looking for theaters and clubs where we would be taking over booking to drive our business into. So that'd be a small deal in relative terms to our business. But that 100-plus theaters and clubs, which is a great platform for us because it tends to be younger skewed, which means we get to present to the Red Bulls and the young sponsors that are…

David Carl Joyce - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will now go to John Tinker with Gabelli Brokerage Company. John Tinker - Gabelli & Company: Thanks. Hi. Just a couple of quick questions. On the three-year guidance you've hit, as you go forward, how important are acquisitions for you in order to hit sort of a double-digit AOI number as opposed to organic growth?

Joe Berchtold - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

John, this is Joe. I think if you look at our business model, we have always viewed tuck-in acquisitions as an integral part where we look to buy pieces that we can feed into the flywheel and add ticketing, add sponsorship, leverage up those. But really the foundation is organic. With the flywheel where it is now, it's now at a scale that we think we can drive very strong growth. And then again, you're just looking in for little pieces that you can build on top of. Like the one we were just talking about, when we bring ticketing, we bring sponsorship, and really put a lot of organic growth on top of the pieces that we put together. John Tinker - Gabelli & Company: And secondly, this may not be a totally fair question. Liberty Media is creating three tracking stocks in the next couple of months. And their ownership in, their stake in you will be kept in Liberty Media, and Sirius and Atlanta Braves will be spun off. But you'll also basically be with 20% of the Atlanta Braves. How do you think you fit into sort of the Liberty Media structure? And do you see any crossovers in any way with the Braves? Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You led with I think it was an unfair question, is that how you phrased it? John Tinker - Gabelli & Company: No, I was giving you an out. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You can ask them at the next Liberty investor dinner we go to. Listen, Liberty has been a great, solid shareholder for us there. Greg and John and Mark Carleton have been very instrumental in playing long with our strategy. We've made them a lot of money since we merged businesses and we both have done very well together. And we would expect Liberty to be a long-term shareholder and a great contributor to our strategy. Where and how they do what with their tracking stocks, as you know, that's not important to me. What's important is that we deliver good returns for our shareholders and good things happen when that happens. And that's our focus and we'll keep doing that for Liberty and others. John Tinker - Gabelli & Company: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we will go to Rich Tullo with Albert Fried. Rich R. Tullo - Albert Fried & Co. LLC: Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. How should we be thinking about ticketing – I mean concert growth in 2016? Are we talking about expenses on a percentage basis equivalent to what happened in 2015? And is there any areas in particular driving the growth? And on Latin America, is there anything to be concerned about given the geopolitical volatility in Brazil and Venezuela?

Joe Berchtold - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

All right. So in terms of the 2016 outlook, I think a few of the things that we gave you were that year-to-date our sales are up 5% driven with very strong amphitheater up 18% and stadiums up 47%, and also that our – if you look at our pipeline of confirmed shows today versus the pipeline of confirmed shows across amphitheaters, arenas, and festivals a year ago at this time, that's up 15%. So both of those metrics are indicating that all of our core type of shows are looking up this year. Stadium was a bit of a lighter year last year, so you're seeing a much higher percentage uptick this year than in the others, but every one of those numbers indicates continued strong growth. I don't think we're at a point where we're going to call exactness on that yet, but certainly looking good from where we're at. In terms of Latin America, again, for us, this is a global portfolio of 40 countries and 25,000 concerts with 60 million fans. I think our experience is, is that in any given year you'll have economically, politically a little bit on the margins of ups and downs, but nothing that we at all see would have any material impact on our business. Rich R. Tullo - Albert Fried & Co. LLC: Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Live Nation Entertainment fourth quarter 2015 earnings conference call. We thank you for your participation.