Earnings Labs

Outfront Media Inc. (OUT)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 4, 2016

$30.47

+0.30%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the OUTFRONT Media Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Greg Lundberg. Please go ahead, sir.

Gregory Lundberg - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining our 2016 second quarter earnings call. On the call today are Jeremy Male, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Donald Shassian, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After a discussion of our financial results, we'll open up the lines up for question-and-answer session. A slide presentation for today's call can be found on the Investor Relations page of our website along with the earnings release and an audio webcast and replay of this call. The conference may include forward-looking statements. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are listed in our earnings materials and in our SEC filings, including our 2015 Form 10-K. We will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call. Any references to OIBDA made today will be on an adjusted basis and reconciliations of OIBDA and other non-GAAP financial measures are in the appendix of the slide presentation, the earnings release and on our website, outfrontmedia.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jeremy. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Greg; good afternoon, everyone. We're happy to have you on today's call. We are now at the midpoint of the year, which seems like a good time to look at the fundamentals of our business and where we are in terms of execution in terms of our strategic goals. These goals have been consistent since our IPO and we did well against them this quarter. Yield management. Our Billboard and Transit yields were up this quarter. National Advertising, up this quarter and improved from Q1. Cost optimization – good expense control while investing in sales and our future digital capabilities. Digital deployment on track with billboards and small screens. And asset mix – we…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question will come from Alexia Quadrani with JPMorgan.

Alexia S. Quadrani - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Thank you. In light of the very impressive growth that we saw in this quarter, particularly in the Billboard business, in the higher yields and I guess in light of what we heard from CCO earlier today, I guess how should we think about the strength in the US Billboard business and the outlook for the rest of the year? And I guess, as sort of follow- on, I guess how much of the improvement in the results are really a result of the internal efforts you have been making versus sort of general industry strength? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Alexia. I think firstly, maybe just to sort of – obviously CCO reported earlier today. I think it's very important that we don't sort of draw a line between exactly what we're saying – they obviously include South America in that business; they're in different segments of the market. So looking at our own business, I think the market has obviously been positive in Q2. I do think that if we look at some of the regions where we made some proactive change in around about this time last year, for the most part, all of those regions have come back well. When we look at the sort of relativity between Q2 and Q3, yes, this time – on our last call, we said low-single to mid, now we're saying low single digits. I certainly don't think that there's a massive shift as we look forward for the balance of the year. I don't want to make comments obviously on Q4, but what I can say is that, we have over 90% of the revenues that we achieved last year, they're already on books for this year. We had all of our regional managers up for the last couple of days, so spent a lot of time talking to them, and they feel pretty positive as we look forward. But, there's no doubt, you do get swings between quarters and Q3 won't show the same level of growth as we saw in Q2.

Alexia S. Quadrani - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And then in terms of the sort of the internal efforts versus sort of industry strength? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I mean it's a little bit hard to say, the industry hasn't reported yet. So it's hard to comment for the industry as a whole, it is the same, and I do think that out-of-home generally I'd say it does seem to be in good health. That said, I'm certainly pleased with the performance in those markets that we've been focusing on over the last 12 months. And we're also pleased today on the strength of what we can see in our business of reaffirming our AFFO guidance for the year. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: If I may just add, our sales, our marketing, our operations, our real estate, there's a lot of things that we have underway to continue to improve this business. And we certainly believe that we're gaining traction on a lot of these initiatives and it is starting to show up in our results, which is great. So, we feel pretty good about all the things we're doing, but we have more room to continue to improve.

Alexia S. Quadrani - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

All right, well, thank you and congratulations on great results. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Alexia.

Operator

Operator

And our next question is from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you. Good afternoon. Jeremy, when you look at the back half, and you've mentioned before you don't expect the same kind of growth in the third quarter versus the second, are you seeing any bigger deceleration in local versus national, or any regional or vertical highlights you'd call out? We've certainly seen a little bit of a deceleration across a lot of ad platforms through the back half. I'm just curious if you could add any color to what you're seeing. And then, Don, how should we think about the way you're thinking about the M&A landscape? I don't know if you could comment at least qualitatively on the pipeline and also how you think about OUTFRONT's capacity and interest in doing accretive M&A, which you've done in the past with a lot of success. Just maybe you can help put into context what the opportunity set looks like and how you're thinking about it? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Ben. Yeah, just on that first point, I think it's fair to say that in our local business, the highs and lows tend to be smoother as compared to our national business that tends to bounce around a bit, because you can have significant lumps of money coming in and out. So, I think where we're sat right now, it's likely that our national business may not be quite as strong in Q3. But I think it's important to say that, it's early days here. We've still got a lot of business that we hope to write. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Understand. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And Ben, on the M&A side, I don't think it's a change from where we've been for the past several quarters, smart and selective I think has been the phrase we've used. We continue to look at things and we'll be opportunistic where it make sense, where it meets our qualitative and quantitative criteria, but we're not looking to do M&A for the sake of M&A. Balance sheet, we want to continue to lower the debt level and we want to continue to lower the leverage, give ourselves more flexibility as opportunities come up. But, we don't think it constraints us today. But, in all honesty, we haven't seen anything of size to date that we want to lean into. But, we continue to look and we'll be smart and selective. Benjamin Daniel Swinburne - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you both.

Operator

Operator

And next from Wells Fargo, we'll hear from Marci Ryvicker.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Just more color on the second quarter. Just want to confirm there was probably no political in there and I just wanted to know how some of your new initiatives are impacting revenue, if at all, such as small cell? Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Political is almost de minimis. We do not have a lot of political advertising in the quarter. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think was like 0.0%, 0.1%. When we look at the new initiatives, for example, on small cell, what I can tell you is that we are making some good progress in Small Cell. It's fair to say, right now, that the income that's hitting our revenue numbers is somewhat de minimis. But, we're working with multiple tenants on master license agreements with both the big national wireless carriers and cable WiFi tenants. These are complex documents. We have made some very, very good progress and we would expect that over the next few weeks we will be giving a little bit of further color in terms of who those MLAs or master license agreements are with. And we continue to believe that this will be an interesting revenue stream for owners of out-of-home assets here in the US.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

And along the lines of Ben's questions, are you seeing any change in ad category from Q2 to Q3, for example, has auto weakened at all? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I mean just talking of maybe just sort of talk about categories. We're always a little bit reticent as we've said before, Marci, to think about categories in terms of a quarter, because you can get one-offs that really sort of skew. And I certainly wouldn't want to be talking about categories there for Q3, frankly, before we finish the quarter because we've still got a little way to go there. When we look at Q2 and just looking at it on a quarterly basis, I'd say – which I always think should carry a bit of a health warning but, in terms of dollars, up, food and beverage was strong for us in Q2, also was strong for us in Q2 and entertainment. And on the down three, those were our top-three categories by dollar change and thinking about our bottom three categories by dollar change, they were retail, TV and education in the quarter.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Actually not only for the quarter, same three categories was up and down for the six months. It's also the three-month, six-month period as well.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

And then the last question is, is the gating factor of a dividend increase really just getting through the MTA contract? And figure out what comes up with that? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Marci, I'm not sure I would say that's a getting factor. We've made a decision – we made a recommendation to the Board at the beginning of the year to keep it flat based on where the stock price was, not being rewarded for that. And I think obviously we talk to the Board at every quarter for continuing dividend decisions. And I think right now, we want them to keep it flat and continue the processes of investing in the business in digital conversions and various growth initiatives and debt reduction. And it still is a primary thesis for us is to grow this business, its revenue, the OIBDA, the cash flows and to grow that dividend. Hopefully, we will get to that point. I'm not sure I'd say whether we'd be making that recommendation next quarter or one after, but it's certainly on an annual basis something that we want to certainly look at and that certainly is our goal.

Marci L. Ryvicker - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from James Dix with Wedbush Securities.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Two questions, over time, would you expect the organic growth of transit advertising to be more or less variable than that of your billboard plans? Certainly over the past year, especially with the huge acceleration you saw in transit, I mean that would be one conclusion you could draw. But, I was just curious based on your longer-term perspective on the two asset classes, how you see the volatility of their growth? And then secondly, just on digital display conversions, is there any geographic skew which you would call out over the next year or so, in terms of markets where you would expect to do more or less either for regulatory reasons or just reasons based on the recommendations you've had from your market managers? Any negative or positive outliers you might call out there in terms of the upside in terms of adding digital displays. Thanks. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, James. So just thinking about the organic growth in transit, I mean one feature of transit and particularly our transit business is that it is really focused on the top urban centers. And I think a cities continue to grow, I think that will be a driver for transit businesses. In general, passenger ridership continues to grow. So therefore, as eyeballs increase, we can get better rates. And I think in the transit business in particular and we've certainly seen it, it's not a category that we're in, but if we look at other transit hubs like airport, I think that the propensity to digitize in these environments will also be further growth drivers. So, I think that transit could increase at a higher rate than the overall out-of-home business, if you like, as we look forward. In terms of sort of digital conversions, yes, I mean there is always the limiting factor in terms of zoning. There are places where quite simply we're not able to build. There are other areas where we choose not to build because of – the sort of what we believe to be the revenue, likely revenue demands over the coming years within a particular market. And as we look forward to the balance of the year, I can't really call out any particular change in terms of where we're going to be building out. And also, there is a mildly sort of competitive aspect to that as well, James, so probably not something we'd particularly want to talk about.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

Great. Just one follow-up on the transit versus the billboards. So, just in terms of the volatility kind of month-to-month of the growth, I mean, would you expect there to be more variability for transit? I mean, is it bought on a shorter basis sometimes? My sense is that the mix of local/national is not dramatically different, so that wouldn't be a driver. But, it sounds like you think it could grow faster. I'm just wondering whether you think there's going to be any more variability to the growth. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. And it is slightly more disposed to national. It's certainly – it's more – it's less broadly based than our billboard business in terms of the markets that we operate in. And to that extent, yes, the numbers on a monthly basis do tend to bounce around a bit more, James.

James G. Dix - Wedbush Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wedbush Securities.

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

And our next question is from Jason Bazinet with Citibank.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks so much. I was sort of intrigued by slide 12 in your deck that showed this $73 million gap between free cash flow and the dividend. It seems like you guys have built up quite a significant cushion relative to where you were at the year end of 2015 where it seemed like there was more risk of a dividend cut if you lost the transit contract. So I just wanted to confirm. I mean, that seems like very big piece of good news that you didn't highlight. And I guess the question embedded in that is, is there anything that we know of a priori that would sort of cause the year-over-year free cash flow numbers to diminish as we move through the back half of 2016? Thanks. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you for the question. You do see a higher delta. Part of that higher delta is due to the timing of some payments. The MTA contract in 2015, we paid a very large sum for the full year upfront in January. With this year, as the bid is now out, we do not have that magnitude of upfront payment. So, that flows through that cash flow statement and gives a little bit of an improvement to this, because of that – we didn't have that huge payment upfront. Notwithstanding that statement, it is a good balance and we do think it gives us very good coverage for our dividend. And obviously, we're going to be using that for paying down our debt this year. So I think it's a good observation; I appreciate it. But the improvement part of it is that timing of that payment changed with the MTA.

Jason Boisvert Bazinet - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Understood. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next, we'll hear from Tracy Young with Evercore ISI.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Yeah, hi, two questions today. So the first question, could you just give us Billboard yield performance in 2Q? Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sorry Tracy, Billboard what?

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Yield in 2Q or just say... Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We have never given out the percentages. I'll tell you, it was up nicely for the quarter.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And since you're not talking more about the Sports Marketing business and we have to model that out, could you spend a moment talking about that, please? Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sports Marketing business is licensed sponsorships for many schools from LSU, University of Virginia and a whole slew down the line that are multiyear contracts that usually are about 10-year contracts or 10-year plus. They have a revenue share component to them. And we spend a lot of time advertising for them as a part of their athletic department, marketing their rights and sponsorships. Solid business, very steady. As those sports franchises grow in exposure and our facilities grow as they put more and more assets in and around their facilities, that also helps grow the business. But, it's not just advertising on signs, it is selling rights as well. The margins for that business, it looks a lot like Transit in terms of the nature of it. You're giving a very sizable percentage to the school, so therefore it really feels and looks a lot like Transit.

Tracy Young - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And next, we'll hear from Jim Goss with Barrington Research.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. I thought the case study you discussed earlier about Lyft was interesting. It seemed like it was sort of a comprehensive consulting arrangement that would benefit them and you. Is this a template you might use in – with a number of other advertisers? Are you trying to go after this sort of thing? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I mean, I guess, the answer to that is, yes, Jim. I mean we do enjoy a good relationship with Lyft; we enjoy a good relationship with number of our key advertisers in the US. And it's fair to say that, as a general rule, we think it's a good thing for us to be going upstream and talking directly with advertisers, so that they can understand fully the benefits of out-of-home. We think it's a good thing to do to the media and to strategic media buying agencies as well rather than just spending all of our time, if you like, within the world of the out-of-home buyers. So yes, I mean it's certainly something that we'd like our sales guys and we encourage our sales guys to do increasingly more of.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Does that sort of relationship get priced differently, in some sort of a package deal where it would probably incentivize them and benefit you, or how would that work? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. I mean I think when – we can't talk about trading arrangements with individual clients, Jim, to be honest.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. But, it's not the only one like that that you are likely to engage in? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, as I said, we have great relationships with a lot of clients, Jim, across the US and it's great relationships that we want to get greater.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And it has – is there any trend in the changes in the duration of billboard displays and what impact on pricing that might have, now in either static or digital boards that you might talk about? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. I think it's fair to say – fair to say that when we look at our business in general, the contract lengths have been pretty standard for the last couple of years. If we go back many years ago, a much larger proportion of our business was in, what we call, permanent holdings where advertisers are taking them for the year. That number now as a percentage of our billboard businesses is down to about 20%, but that 20% has been pretty consistent actually for the last couple of years and outside of that, most national buys are for one month and that continues to be the case.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And one last one, I think last call you were talking a little bit about blending digital boards into some new categories, creating new business lines, if you will. Is there anything more that has developed that you can talk about? Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: When we look at sort of – I'm going to answer that question like this, Jim. So when we look at our digital business, it continues to grow at a faster pace than our business as a whole. Yields are up and we are building out more signage. And we've also started our small screen efforts with the likes of Washington, Minneapolis and Turnstyle, so what – we're starting to generate revenues and most importantly we're testing our great new hardware and software platform that we believe will be one of the key pieces of our growth story, as we look at the coming years. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Testing logistics of a rollout to be able to prepare ourselves for even larger deployments in the near future. So we're all moving forward as we've talked about before.

James Charles Goss - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst

I appreciate that. Thanks very much. Donald R. Shassian - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Jim.

Operator

Operator

As there are no further questions, we'll turn it back over to the speakers for closing remarks. Jeremy John Male - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Fine, well, thanks very much everyone for your questions and your time today. We really hope you enjoy the rest of your summer. Look forward to seeing many of you over the coming weeks at our investor events in September. Thank you very much indeed.

Operator

Operator

That concludes today's conference call and thank you for joining.