Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (CCO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
September 7, 2023
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Jason Bazinet
analyst[ Good afternoon ] everyone. I'm very pleased to have Scott Wells, President and CEO of Clear Channel Outdoor, and we're doubly fortunate because Brian Coleman, the CFO, is here as well. So I think it's just Scott is going to give the presentation. Short presentation, then we're going to do a fireside chat and then turn it over to Q&A. So with that, Scott?
Scott Wells
executiveThank you, Jason. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here. We do have just a couple of slides. We know that the audience is in a variety of places about knowing our story. So we want to just give a little bit of a high level. I'm going to read the safe harbor statement. [ I'll skip with that ]. So this is just a snapshot of our business, and it's an important snapshot because we're in the midst of transforming our portfolio. And I'll just -- I'll focus you on the right-hand side of the slide which shows our '22 revenue and EBITDA. And what we're in the process of doing is focusing down on the blue and orange segments of the business. We've made some good progress in divestitures in Europe, have sold a couple of geographies, have one in Spain teed up and going through regulatory approval. We have France teed up and going through a process unique to France around the Works Council and things along those lines. But that will leave us with effectively our Europe North segment, and that strategic review is ongoing. We've been busy this year in addition to our transactions. We extended -- amended and extended our liquidity lines. And we just recently did a bond issuance that we went out with a $500 million plan, but the demand for it was such that we did $750 million. Brian will talk a little bit about that when we're in the Q&A section, just in more detail. And we've continued to invest in the business. We're continuing with our digital conversions and doing a lot of investment in digital technology. One of the things about out-of-home that we think is an incredibly attractive, part of it is the resilience. This is a global picture. The blue is the kind of traditional out-of-home. The orange is digital. So you can see the rapid growth in digital globally. And this is the whole market. This isn't just us. But you can see that outside of some modest step backs along the way and a very tough step back in COVID-19, this has been a very steady growing business. And we think that dynamic is a dynamic that we'll see going forward. And we're not alone thinking that this is Magna's viewpoint of the world again, the blue here is looking at 2010 to '19. And the orange is looking forward 2020 to 2027, looking at actuals and at Magna's projections. And what you can see is that out-of-home over on the right is of all the traditional media and the dotted boxes, it's the fastest-growing segment, both in terms of what's actually happened and what's projected and that digital out-of-home is actually outgrowing online properties, kind of has been at parity with them in recent years and is projected to outgrow in coming years. So we think it's a growthful medium. It's really the last broad reach medium that's reliable in across the universe of traditional media and we feel good about the prospects. And just about our company. I'm not going to go through all of this, but as we focus down, we're going to have a very attractive pool of assets that are very difficult to replicate. We are a leader in the application of technology in the business both to digitization of the assets as well as bringing data to analytics, programmatic buying capabilities, things along those lines. It's a very diverse customer base. We're about 65% local, 35% national, with national defined as going through the big agencies. So we have a good mix of demand. Technology is transforming everything that we do. We've made some real strides there, and we think we've got a very strong team. So with that, nickel tour of what we're about. I'm going to hand it to you, Jason, to fire away with any questions.
Jason Bazinet
analystDo the Q&A. All right. I don't think I told you this story, but many years ago, I was viewed on the buy side as the bear on the outdoor space. And I won't worry with why it was bearish, but the line that always stuck with me is this, I was on the phone with this investor, and he said, "How can you be bearish on outdoor?" and I said, I don't know the world is just changing really fast. The advertising ecosystem is changing really fast. He said, Jason, he said you know there's billboards in the movie Blade Runner, right? So we're going to be okay. That always struck me as something that was true. So I like your long-term growth targets there, at least Magna's numbers. Here's my question. I think of you guys in sort of 3 buckets, the strategic review you talked about, just operating the core U.S. business and then the third bucket is sort of REIT conversion, right, ultimately. So I'm going to just go through in that sort of order. Let's start with the strategic review. Can you just walk through all of those Europe South close dates real quickly and just to make sure that we're all on the same page about when you expect them to close? And just maybe fill in a little bit of like why are the close dates so different? I mean some of them happen really quickly, some of them, it seems like we're going to have to wait until sometime next year. So let's start there.
Scott Wells
executiveSure. So Switzerland, we announced in December of last year and it closed in March of this year. Italy, we announced in May and closed in May. And Spain, we announced at the same time, it was the same buyer, but that one won't close until 2024. And the difference between Italy and Spain is because of regulatory review. So Spain needs to go through a full process and there's no sort of prescribed timeline on that. We think it will be in 2024. We don't think it will be later than 2024, but we really don't know. It could be early '24, it could be late '24. We're sort of going on the premise that it will be probably towards the later part of 2024, just given the dynamics in the Spanish market. And then with France...
Jason Bazinet
analystSorry, can we just pause.
Scott Wells
executiveSure.
Jason Bazinet
analystYou say dynamics in the Spanish market. Is it that the pro forma entity has so much market share that there's some -- it's going to take a lot of regulatory questions back and forth? Or is it more just -- I think in Spanish regulatory process is a little slower than it is somewhere else?
Scott Wells
executiveYes. I think it's not any one thing, but it does have to do with the relative size of the entity going forward. But I am definitely not going to define anything about market positions in a fireside chat with Citi. But that is the underlying reason. And it just -- some transactions, we actually went through with a much different strategic position. We went through a regulatory review in Switzerland, and that's what took the 4 months between December and in March to have that happen. And that was with -- really in adjacent, it was hardly even a competitive consolidation. They had a very small out-of-home business, but it was more of a traditional print advertising company that acquired our assets in Switzerland. And then the last piece is France, which we announced the exclusive negotiating partner shortly before earnings. I don't remember if it was July or August, but we expect that, that will close in Q4. And that's driven by normal closing process. It's a relatively big business. So you've got all of the normal closing accounts that you have to work through and that sort of thing. And more particularly, there is a Works Council review in France. And so the employees get a chance to interview the buyers. There's a whole back-and-forth data collection process. it's unique to France. And so that's what drives that. But that will not be subject to a regulatory review because it's essentially a new entrant into the marketplace.
Jason Bazinet
analystOkay. So I'm going to -- I guess for all of these asset sales that have been announced and some of which haven't closed, I don't think the markets looked at any of those as saying, "Oh, that's a deleveraging transaction", right? It was more just strategically we don't want to be in this business as you sort of glide towards REIT conversion. When people think of Europe North, is it the same sort of answer, that it's not really deleveraging isn't part of the objective function?
Scott Wells
executiveYes. I mean, we would have -- we would love for these to be deleveraging transactions. But when you have a debt multiple like we do and you look at what European assets trade for, the odds of it being a deleveraging transaction are pretty long. So we've been pretty clear, I think, in all of our communication on this, that this is a truly strategy move to simplify the footprint, simplify the overhead as opposed to something that's going to lead to deleveraging, but it's an important first step to being able to then focus our energy on really optimizing the U.S. and how to take the U.S. to a whole another level.
Jason Bazinet
analystOkay. let's talk about taking the U.S. to a whole another level. You laid out some pretty interesting long-term targets about a year ago, I guess, 4% to 6% top line growth, 7% to 10% adjusted EBITDA growth, 10% to 20% AFFO growth on that 2022 to 2025 timeframe. Is there anything that's transpired in the last year that would cause you to say those aren't reasonable multiyear targets?
Scott Wells
executiveThere really hasn't. And I've got to stick here with what we communicated in our last earnings, which I think we were very clear that the only changes in our guidance that there were 2 parts. So let me walk back to our beginning of the year guidance, which was that we didn't change anything about those long-term targets in February. In our most recent earnings, we confirmed -- and at that time, in February, we gave guidance for the year. We confirmed in our last earnings that the only changes we made in our guidance for the year was to take out Switzerland and Italy because they're gone. And we brought in the upper end, just reflecting on the fact that this has not been as robust a year as it might have been. So we're not out of the gate as fast as we ideally would have been because 2023 has not been the year that we might have hoped and dreamed, but it's also not been a train wreck of the year. And so I wouldn't say it's knocked us off that path.
Jason Bazinet
analystAnything you'd add, Brian?
Brian Coleman
executiveI think the only thing I would say is that is over that 3-year period. And so we knew there would be some headwinds in 2023. And so when somebody looks at it and says, well, 2023 hasn't contributed proportional share for that 3-year run, that's okay. We didn't expect it to.
Jason Bazinet
analystOkay. That's great color. So people have been talking about a recession for 1.5 years...
Scott Wells
executiveSince March, I think it was '22.
Jason Bazinet
analystYes. Right? That's weird.
Scott Wells
executiveIf we wound up for it, then we're ready.
Jason Bazinet
analystThat's right. You guys are all ready. But it doesn't feel like a recession, right? It's just a little bit of softness around the edges. I mean, that's pretty much what we've picked up so far. Nothing's really changed on that front, has it?
Scott Wells
executiveI certainly don't feel like I could declare a recession. There are verticals that have pulled back in their spending. The ad market is not as robust as it was a year ago. But I think to characterize it as a recession would be kind of recessive.
Jason Bazinet
analystIn verticals where you'd say you're seeing strength and where you've seen some weakness?
Scott Wells
executiveSo from our point of view, we are seeing good strength in business services. That's probably our most robust local market and that covers everything from copy centers to like lawyers, with lawyers probably being one of the really strong growth areas. We've seen good growth in pharma. It's a small vertical for us, but that's an exciting area that we think has a lot of potential and that we've done a lot of the legwork to unlock that category with our data and analytics. And I think that's a building success story for us that is illustrative of what we're trying to do in a couple of verticals. We've seen very good growth in travel-oriented verticals, so amusements, hotels, restaurants, things along those lines. The weaker ones have been technology. That's been softer. Auto insurance has not bounced back. We complained a lot about auto insurance in 2022. It was our weak vertical all year that year. And we had some reason to think that we would see some pickup this year, and it has not. So that remains an area of opportunity because I think that they will benefit from getting back in out-of-home, because I think they have a lot of characteristics that make them a good match.
Jason Bazinet
analystIsn't there something from an insurance perspective that sort of -- I don't know the exact nuance, is this a buy side or you sent me some e-mail that explained this. Were there like restrictions on what the insurance companies can do or something about not being able to pass through rate or something?
Scott Wells
executiveSo there was an issue after COVID where when people started leaving their houses again they start having a lot more accidents. So insurance, if you remember during COVID, some of you maybe got these checks, a lot of insurance companies were actually sending checks back to their customers because during the core COVID, traffic was down so much that their claims were way down. But when you came out of COVID, you had the dynamic of more accidents. And if you remember, the supply chain in automotive was like totally screwed up for a while. So parts got really expensive. And so in just about every geography, their rate base was all screwed up. So their costs were through the roof. They hadn't increased rates. In fact, if anything, they've taken them down because for a while they were good. And they're highly regulated, so they had to build the rate base back up. That's why we thought we might see more of them this year, but I think it has been inconsistent. And I think the supply chain problems have persisted and -- so we are seeing on various media insurance advertising coming back, but it hasn't come back as much. And so hopefully, as that normalizes, I do think that, that's a COVID angle on some level.
Jason Bazinet
analystInteresting. And you still expect the fourth quarter to be better than the third quarter this year?
Scott Wells
executiveYes. I mean, from what we're seeing right now, I think the guidance we gave on Q3 was going to be not terrific, but Q4 was going to be better than Q3, that's right.
Jason Bazinet
analystOkay. Okay. So we did some work, I don't know, maybe 6 months ago where I went back and I just took 10 years of -- this is all U.S. data only. And I took you guys, your U.S. operations and 2 of your big U.S. competitors that are REITs. And I just rolled up all the data. And I just said, "Okay, here's what the growth was". And I don't know, something like 4.5 or something, roughly, top line growth. But what surprised me is maybe 40% or 45% of that came from tuck-in acquisitions, 40% or 45% of that came from digital conversions and only about 10% or 15% of it came from ex M&A, ex digital conversion. Does that -- I mean, did we do the math wrong? Does that seem about right to you?
Scott Wells
executiveSo the interesting thing on us, and you started this as of 2013.
Jason Bazinet
analystI think that's right, I think that's right.
Scott Wells
executiveSo we divested a bunch of markets in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016.
Jason Bazinet
analystI think I adjusted for that. I think I adjusted...
Scott Wells
executiveWell, if you adjusted for that because that would be my #1 adjustment for you. And then I think the other adjustment relating to us is that we really haven't done appreciable M&A. So our growth rate would be lower than what you quoted during that time. But when you think about our mix, it would probably be 55-45, 60-40 digital conversion and baseline. But recognize that, that baseline is being attrited because I mean you're talking about a decade, so in a decade, that's probably 1,500 digital conversions, which means that's 1,500 top flight printed signs that are out. And then in most cases, you have to give up a couple of other signs in order to get the right to convert the 1,500, so that baseline has actually attrited maybe 5,000 signs to do. It's not like-for-like because other than the 1,500, the 1,500 are like top flight signs that get converted to the digital and they become what amplifies that growth, but you have to give up a certain amount of square footage typically in order to just do the conversion. So if you netted all of that out, maybe it's 50-50. But your math is not crazy. It's just we didn't -- we would be negative on the tuck-in acquisitions.
Jason Bazinet
analystUnderstood. RADAR and data cleaning. Can you talk a little bit about RADAR? Because I know what it is in theory, I just can't tell how big it is. If it's like aspirational, if it's actually like needle moving in terms of what's actually happening on the ground. So maybe explain what RADAR is and then maybe...
Scott Wells
executiveSo RADAR is our suite of data and analytics tools that you append to the industry standard counts. So don't think of it as a accounting system, think of it as giving you digital insights, digital equivalent insights. So being able to look into the profile of your customers. We break it into 4 pieces. There's a piece that we call RADARView, which is just a planning tool. So think of it as like a big visualization that you can go in and say, "I want women who are in a certain age group who drink a lot of coffee and have 2 kids" and you can then have that give you a heat map of all of our signs to show you in the relevant area, which ones over-indexed to that audience. That is probably used in 60% of our deals. It is very common as a starting point, and it is something that our account executives find very, very powerful. So that's RADARView, and it's free. We don't charge for that. We then have RADARProof, which is a whole set of different ways to attribute what happened. So if you're a retailer, did the person come to your store. If you're an app, did they download your app. If you're a drug, did they get a script related to it. And this is all anonymized. We have a very, very good privacy characteristics because we are serving the mass audience. You're not -- each of these signs is serving thousands of people. And so you don't have the problem, like particularly like with that script one, you don't have a problem of it being a one-to-one privacy situation. And so with that, RADARProof, we do not use anywhere near as much as RADARView, but it is absolutely central to our business development strategy. And so we've added things based on -- a couple of years ago, we started calling on advertisers directly. And one of the things.
Jason Bazinet
analystAs opposed to what? Going through an agency?
Scott Wells
executiveAs opposed to going through -- well, so locally, you've always called on them directly. But for national, for the big advertisers, we almost always we're doing most of the work through the agency. And so we started going to brands in sweet spots direct, and so that's where we've driven our RADAR roadmap is off of what those folks have been asking for. And so this has been central to us developing, particularly pharma in the most recent one. But we developed IRI capability, the app download capability we did in conjunction with a couple of tech companies. So it's been developed around those, and it's part of our business development strategy. So it's important to that. We have a thing called RADARConnect, which is literally just selling mobile ads to people who have been exposed. So again, each of our signs, you have a catchment area around the signs, it's called the viewshed. People go through the viewshed. If you've seen the sign, you get served an ad on your phone, and it has the same creative ideally and then that leads to -- it's basically free money for the advertiser because their click-through rates tend to be 4 or 5x more than what they are if you do just the mobile ad alone. And then our last one is RADARSync, and RADARSync is what leads into the data clean rooms, and it's when we actually hand our exposure data to an advertiser to merge with their first-party data, and that happens in a data clean room, it happens in a totally anonymized way. And so you have the ability to make these connections without anybody being able to identify the individuals involved. And the data clean room, in particular, is important as a vehicle for our programmatic business because many of the advertisers that do programmatic don't use out-of-home currently. And this gives them a way to actually hold out-of-home accountable and they can use it for their planning. They can use it for their attribution because they have their own methodologies. And so that's what it's for. So it is -- think of it as generally like a sales enabler and/or something that is causing us to be able to bring new accounts into our business. That's really what the purpose of it is. And we feel very good about the ROI. It has not been a lot of money and it has definitely brought in. We keep -- we have a monthly dashboard we're looking at in terms of new accounts brought in. It has brought in many times what we've invested in it.
Jason Bazinet
analystSo you said something, I think it was on the last earnings call, maybe it was the one before that, I don't remember. You were talking about how you look at some of the behavior of marketers in Europe, and it's pretty different from the behavior of marketers in the United States. And I think you brought up packaged goods as an example, which I thought was like just one of the most interesting things I ever heard about outdoor. So can you just remind us what you said about that, what your observation was and just speak to whether or not there is an opportunity to sort of have some new verticals in the U.S. based on what you've observed in Europe?
Scott Wells
executiveWell, yes. It's interesting because it really speaks to how localized the execution of out-of-home is because the behavior of packaged goods companies in Europe and, frankly, in Latin America, too. I mean -- and I think in Asia, when we were in Asia, it was the same dynamic. Out-of-home is much more routinely used by packaged goods companies in all those geographies, except in the U.S. because in the U.S., they prefer television. And so there's another reason for it. It's because the assets in those countries are much more -- they're much closer to point of sale. And so...
Jason Bazinet
analystThe outdoor assets.
Scott Wells
executiveThe outdoor assets. So think of it as you're going down a high street in London, and you walk by a bus shelter that has an ad for an ice cream bar and the next store is selling that ice cream bar. So that's why the packaged goods folks prefer it that way. But the reality is that our medium actually works very similarly here. Just Americans travel a lot farther than Europeans as they're shopping. I mean, we have lots and lots of data on this in terms of the sort of exposed and then the action that happens. And so we're gradually building that case study with the packaged goods because it's literally the same companies, it's the same CMOs. But yes, it's the U.K. team versus the U.S. team. But in the U.S., everybody loves producing a video. Everybody loves to have the shot that they can then put on all their different video assets, and out-of-home just does not -- it's not the core of their budget. But we're working with them to demonstrate why it should be. And so I think it's a huge opportunity, and we have a lot of evidence, something we can go in and say, "Look, we know how much is your budget", in the U.K. you're spending on this, like come on now. And that conversation actually works. It's not a -- when you're talking to the brand, the agency, it's a little bit of a different story with the brand itself, if you can get to the brand leader, you can actually get traction on that.
Jason Bazinet
analystI can think of some cities though in the U.S. that feel more like London, right? Like do you see any sort of skew where...
Scott Wells
executiveThere's probably I mean, in New York City, there is greater use of out-of-home in New York City than in London. So as a percent of total ad spend, New York has higher ad spend on out-of-home than London does.
Jason Bazinet
analystThat's interesting.
Scott Wells
executiveBut that -- New York is the exception that proves the rule. It's -- there's really not another city quite like it. I mean San Francisco has some characteristics. Boston has a little, there are parts of Miami. But for the most part, in the U.S., you're talking about people in cars.
Jason Bazinet
analystYes, understood. Okay. REIT conversion is my third topic. So this -- I guess, maybe this is for you, Brian.
Brian Coleman
executiveI've got the look, didn't I?
Jason Bazinet
analystYes, exactly. Little bit. What -- just -- I understand that your leverage has to come down before it makes any sense, right, to convert to REIT. But is the vision that you sort of organically get there? Be EBITDA growth? Or it's a combination of EBITDA growth and using cash flow to pay down debt? Or does it also include shrinking the size of the U.S. business to sort of get to the -- by selling some assets that would allow you to delever to get there sooner. And my follow-up that I want to link to this is, do you think about the -- the sort of the time value of money of REIT conversion. In other words, clearly preserving the totality of your U.S. assets makes sense. But if that means it's 12 years before you can convert to a REIT, how do you think about the math of -- is it better to have a company that's half the size that REITs tomorrow as opposed to the full size that REITs in 12 years? Does that make sense?
Brian Coleman
executiveIt does. And I think I'll start with the back end and then kind of feed into some of the things in. There's a number of value or potential values of becoming a REIT. But one of the most important things is the potential tax benefits that accrue to a company that's a REIT. We actually aren't missing out on that today. We've made the 163(j) election. That gives us the ability to lift the interest deductibility cap on the proportion of interest that's generated from debt associated with our real property. So our U.S. business, the assets that you would REIT. It's actually in the same area as the code as the REIT is -- as the REIT election is. That proportion will actually grow as you dispose of international assets because your real estate assets as a proportion of the total will grow. So if you think about the benefits with respect to managing federal income tax, we're not missing out on it. In fact, we're actually elongating that benefit. That being said, we intend to grow the company. We intend to grow free cash flow. We intend to grow taxable net income. So there will be a time where that will outpace our deductibility and we would become a material federal income taxpayer. But we're not missing out on it today. Now there may be other benefits in terms of your shareholder base and in terms of some of the benefits you get in M&A world and different things. But the big tax benefit, we're not missing out of. So that time value, you're losing the time value of money. I don't think it's a material part of the decision today. That doesn't mean to say, we're not thinking about it. We think about it all the time. Our 2 domestic peers are both REITs. We want to be on a pathway to preserve the option to convert to a REIT. Indeed, when the company was separated from iHeart. We were done in a way that cost NOLs, but preserve the ability to convert to a REIT within the next decade, otherwise, we would have had to avoid. So then the big question is, well, ultimately, how do you get there? And I think the short answer is, there's probably a lot of little things that you need to do, including things in the categories that you mentioned. Fundamentals, you got to grow the core business. We've made the statement that, that's the Americas and -- America and the Airports business. We're going to go through a strategic review. We're going to rationalize the European assets. And while that may not be deleveraging on the surface when you do the math, for the reasons that Scott mentioned, there are benefits and maybe the way that I look at it, secondary deleveraging impacts. For example, you don't have that constant CapEx commitment that you have in Europe just to maintain the portfolio. We are going to have -- if we go through the process and we are successful in disposition, we are going to have excess asset sale proceeds come back, how do we deploy those? So I do think that we're going to have an aggregate reduction in the amount of debt that's outstanding. And by the way, it's been the Americas business that serviced that debt for the past decade. We haven't had material repatriations that were from operating cash flow generation and maybe from asset sale or debt raises, but not from operating cash flow generation. So I think that's the first thing that you focus on, and that's focusing on the core business and growing that business. In terms of things you can do in the capital markets space, we keep our options open. Not that it's deleveraging, but it does impact the runway that you have. We did a successful extension of our revolvers earlier in the year that Scott mentioned. That was one of the big 3 goals that we had. We went out and we did the debt raise. That addressed roughly 1/3 of our 2026 maturity of term loans. But what it also did was enable us to apply proceeds to the term loans in a way that was beneficial to us. Two examples are: one, we prepaid our amortization. So from a liquidity or cash flow perspective, we now have $20 million more or $5 million per quarter of amortization that we've avoided. We also use the Dutch auction mechanism that's embedded in our term loan agreement to save about $5 million and retain that cash on our balance sheet. So these were all a little pieces of things that we can do to kind of increase the runway, increase liquidity, set the table for us. You mentioned a couple of things that are really, I would put more in the M&A category, right? And how important is that? I think our focus right now is clearly the attention is on our international assets and getting to a point where we have the core group that we're focused on. And we want to keep an open mind on all of the assets that we have. I think with respect to the domestic assets, we obviously have to look at it in totality. What ultimately are your after-tax benefits of doing that? Is it deleveraging? How does it impact the platform? And I would say our priority right now is to continue to focus on the international assets. But we do think that we have a path to becoming simpler, growing that simpler base, continuing to do a lot of little things. I think Scott, you described it earlier, hitting some singles, hitting a number of singles and advancing the runner. And then maybe that opens up further opportunities to do other things. So I ran through that really quickly. I'm sure you have something you want to add or maybe something I missed, but that's kind of the way I see it, Jason.
Jason Bazinet
analystSuper helpful.
Scott Wells
executiveNo. I mean I think that's the right description. And that $20 million of extra liquidity, I mean if you think about what happened to us with interest rates and our term loan, so we've taken 1/3 of it out to push 2026 out, but we've also fixed it essentially in a wash with where the term loan is now. When we first started the process, we thought we'd get a little more savings. But probably save an 8 of the -- [ 8 of a point ] relative -- but it's now fixed. So to the degree rates go up, we're going to be impacted less. And that had a huge impact on us because in 2023, we will have spent $75 million more in interest as a result of interest rates going up, even with that not even being the majority. It's just -- it's big numbers that we're talking about. And that $75 million, if you reference back to our September Investor Day a year ago, we talked about the business generating sort of 40% or 50% incremental EBITDA each year in the U.S. So additive as you go, that's like 1.5 years of that process. And if you look at how things have played out, that is sort of what has been added to our time to cash flow positivity. And as we get to cash flow positivity, which that amortization is a step in that direction that will help with that, that's going to be where you start to see the flywheel catches, we start being able to pay things down, maybe we get a little more involved in M&A. There's a variety of things that you can do. And we do have a lot of tools that we can use to accelerate that. I don't think anyone should be expecting that we think we've got a dozen years to get to where we want to be at a REIT nor do I think it requires that. I mean, if you just do the math off of the $40 million or $50 million incremental that you can do sort of growing the business and expanding the footprint, doing more digital, that sort of thing. That's how you get there.
Jason Bazinet
analystSuper helpful.
Brian Coleman
executiveThe only thing I would say is just remember that even though floating rates increased greatly and it was a headwind. We benefited from really, really low floating rates for a long time. So we -- so just want to put it out there.
Scott Wells
executiveWell said.
Jason Bazinet
analystWell, thank you both for your time. I thought it was super great. I don't know if there's any questions in the audience, we're happy to take them if you do have any questions. Yes. Can you just wait for the mic. Thanks.
Unknown Analyst
analystJust on that last comment, your -- all your adjustments with the floating rate loans and et cetera, what does the free cash flow profile look like in the next couple of years just with your -- all your product enhancements and divestitures and adjustments?
Brian Coleman
executiveYes. So we expect to continue to burn cash for a couple more quarters. But I think given the guidance that we've provided and barring anything unexpected, we would expect to turn to free cash flow positive in 2024. Now there's a lot in that, right? And interest rate, interest rate stability is part of it. But I think we would expect our cash trough probably to be mid-2024. And then if the businesses continue to perform, we would expect to turn free cash flow positive later in the year.
Jason Bazinet
analystAny other questions? Okay. Great. Scott, Brian, thank you so much.
Scott Wells
executiveThanks, Jason. Appreciate it.
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