Earnings Labs

Saga Communications, Inc. (SGA)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, May 12, 2020

$11.03

+0.32%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Saga Communications Incorporated Q1 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all parties have been placed in a listen-only mode. It is now my pleasure to turn it over to your host, Ed Christian, President and CEO of Saga Communications. Sir, the floor is yours.

Edward Christian

Management

Thank you very much, Catherine. Good morning, everybody. And it's the usual Ed and Sam Bush. We are gathering here for our little morning talk. This is interesting for us because usually – we're usually third or fourth on the list of the broadcast companies who have announced for their report, but they've been late and – or should I say, tardy. I think tardy is more applicable word. And Sam, I know that when my son was in school, if you were daylight, you got marked down a grade, and do you think that happens to reporting companies?

Samuel Bush

Management

I don't know whether it does or not, but it certainly sounds worthwhile.

Edward Christian

Management

Yes. So you get down to maybe a C and if you had a B on it before, you were C. I don't know how that works. Anyway, we have completed all of ours and are timely on this. We have our Annual Meeting Call next week. For those who enjoy this so much who want to join in can – if you are a shareholder, can so certainly do so. In the meantime, I'll turn it over to Sam for his summary of Q1 or whatever.

Samuel Bush

Management

Thanks, Ed. This call will contain forward-looking statements about our future performance and results of operations that involve risks and uncertainties that are described in the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10-K. This call will also contain a discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation for all the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure are attached in the selected financial data table. Well, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting impact on the overall economy, as Ed pointed out just a minute ago, I am not sure that a review of the first quarter's numbers is very meaningful. That said, as reported in the press release, we did have a $310,000 increase in net income for the first quarter, compared to last year. Early in the year, we were off to a good start. As through February, we were showing increases in net revenue, including gross political revenue of $1 million for the quarter, compared to $64,000 last year. Broadcast cash flow through February was also showing solid growth year-over-year. That all came to an end in mid-March with the significant disruptions to our advertising revenue as the 19 states that we operate in issued various shelter-in-place orders as well as requiring certain retailers, including restaurants and auto dealers to partially or completely close. For the quarter, CapEx was $1 million. We are currently looking at only spending the capital dollars needed to protect our infrastructure, while we determine the impact and longevity of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of the quarter, we had $10 million in debt outstanding. Cash on hand at the end of the quarter was $46.3 million. As of May 4th, we had $47 million in cash. We are fortunate that with Ed's historical focus on financial stability, Saga does not have any debt covenant or liquidity issues. We have and will continue to take steps to reduce expenses in reaction to the current revenue trends. We are also taking steps to help our local communities and advertising clients to be prepared to act quickly as the impact of the pandemic begins to lessen. Including the $0.32 per share dividend, which was paid on April 10, 2020, we’ve paid over $71.3 million in dividends since December 3rd of 2012. Right, now our results for the rest of the month let alone the rest of the year are hard to project. We expect second quarter performance to be significantly below last year. We believe we are well positioned to see a gradual improvement in this year's financial performance beginning in the third quarter. This is based on the states where our radio stations operate continuing to loosen their shelter-in-place orders and our advertising clients beginning to see improvements in their business, which I know Ed is going to talk more about. And with that, Ed, I will turn it back over to you.

Edward Christian

Management

Thank you, Sam. As Sam said, it's very difficult to get any visibility at all on the runway. In fact, right now, I think, we are probably fogged in with the hope that the end of fog will look shortly and that depends on 50 governors in 50 states. We are finding the different states obviously have different things. So for instance, Maine, yesterday, opened hair salons and car dealers, golf courses and marinas. However, if you are coming into Maine from outside of Maine, you were still to announce yourself and self-quarantine for two weeks. So, we have a myriad of different number of rules, laws, regulations, executive proclamations that we have to negotiate to try and get a clear idea exactly when everything is happening. With that said, I have really nothing prepared, but I have comments. So, bear with me as we kind of go through this here. Actually, I am going to start off on something that just was spoken to me a few minutes ago by Chris Forgy, who is our Senior Vice President and in-charge of operations. And Chris was on the phone earlier this morning doing a Teams call, conference call with the sellers in Manchester, New Hampshire. And his topic of the sales meeting is that, hope is not a strategy. And I think this is probably one of the things that we look at is that we don't hope for change. We have to effectuate change, we have to make change. And so, really what we have been focusing on of late during this, rather than sitting around waiting for the economy to heal itself, so that clients come back to us is we have been taking a very proactive part on the role of Saga of really reviewing our strategy…

Samuel Bush

Management

No, I think that wraps it up for now. We did not get any questions coming in, because I think everybody is focused on what's happening in the future as opposed to what's going on right now, so.

Edward Christian

Management

Well, as ever, if anybody does have questions, Sam and I are around for the rest of today. And feel free for your individual questions, do just give us a call. Catherine, we'll turn it back to you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time. And have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Samuel Bush

Operator

Thank you, Catherine. End of Q&A: