Lamar Advertising Company (LAMR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Excuse me, everyone, we now have Sean Reilly and Jay Johnson in conference. [Operator Instructions] In the course of this discussion, Lamar may make forward-looking statements regarding the company, including statements about its future financial performance, strategic goals, plans and objectives, including with respect to the amount and timing of any distributions to stockholders and the impacts and effects of general economic conditions, including inflationary pressures on the company's business, financial condition and results of operations. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond Lamar's control and which may cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. Lamar has identified important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in this call in the company's second quarter 2026 earnings release and its most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Lamar refers you to those documents. Lamar's second quarter 2026 earnings release, which contains information 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 the Investors section of Lamar's website www.lamar.com. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sean Reilly. Mr. Reilly, you may begin.

Thank you, Katie. Good morning all, and welcome to Lamar's Q2 2026 Earnings Call. Our business is in a terrific place right now. As our second quarter results demonstrate, advertisers clearly value our ability to connect them with their audiences and deliver messages that resonate. We are meeting our customers where they are, including through our growing programmatic sales channel, and we're attracting new advertisers who appreciate out-of-home's NAC for standing out in today's increasingly fragmented media landscape. The vibe out there is good. For the quarter, revenue and EBITDA growth once again exceeded our internal forecast, with increases in revenue across all business offerings, billboards, transit, airports and logos, and all regions and on both the local and national levels. On an acquisition-adjusted basis, consolidated revenue grew 6.1% in the second quarter, while EBITDA increased 7.3%, with a record EBITDA margin of 49.2% in the quarter. It was our highest rate of revenue growth since Q2 2022, and our 21st consecutive quarter of revenue growth overall. The momentum has carried into Q3 and pacing suggests year-over-year revenue growth rates for the balance of 2026 are likely to be in the same range as Q2. With that in mind, we have raised our guidance for full year AFFO to a range of $8.75 to $8.90 per share. At the midpoint, that would represent AFFO per share growth of approximately 7% over 2025. Additionally, management will be recommending a $0.05 increase in our quarterly dividend to $1.65 per share. Back to Q2. Categories of strength included service, political, retail and financial, while real estate and amusements were slightly weaker. Service has been a reliable growth category for several years now, propelled by demand from attorneys. But in the second quarter, we also saw a surge in business from technology service providers, including those within the AI space. Political spend, meanwhile, increased more than $5 million year-over-year in Q2 and is running well ahead of 2024 levels. It will continue to be a tailwind in Q4. About half the political dollars are being spent on our digital platform, which was the biggest driver of our overall growth in Q2. Our digital revenue increased 15.4% year-over-year and now constitutes a full 1/3 of our total billboard revenues. On a same board basis, digital billboard revenue increased 6.5% year-over-year. Growth of more than 50% through our programmatic sales channel once again made it a bright spot, and programmatic accounted for approximately 10% of digital billboard revenue in the quarter. Our national business was particularly strong, helped, of course, by the World Cup. On a consolidated basis, national and programmatic revenue increased nearly 16% in Q2, the sharpest increase since the COVID rebound in 2021. Local and regional revenue, meanwhile, increased 3.4%. We have been active on the M&A front. Through June 30, we had spent more than $100 million on nearly 30 billboard acquisitions as well as on purchases of easements beneath our billboards. We have a healthy pipeline of billboard deals and easements under LOI and should easily exceed $200 million in cash spend for the full year. Meanwhile, we expect to close our second UPREIT transaction in the coming weeks. All in all, I could not be more pleased with how the year is shaping up. I want to commend our team across Lamar land for their efforts so far in 2026. We have been busy. With that, I will turn it over to Jay to walk you through some additional numbers.

Thanks, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had a strong second quarter and are extremely pleased with our results, which exceeded internal expectations and consensus estimates across revenue, adjusted EBITDA and AFFO. The airport business continued to outperform with acquisition-adjusted revenue increasing 21.1% in Q2 versus last year, which was an acceleration from last quarter when airports grew a healthy 15.5%. Our billboard regions all experienced mid-single-digit top line growth, led by the Southwest and Atlantic, which were up 7.7% and 6.5%, respectively. In addition, the positive momentum continued in July with revenue increasing 6%, outpacing our original budget. July's strong performance brings acquisition-adjusted revenue to 5.2% through the first 7 months of the year, and we are optimistic about our booking pace for the balance of the third quarter as we approach midterm elections. Acquisition-adjusted consolidated expenses increased 5.1% in the second quarter, which grew 150 basis points more than anticipated, but driven by variable expenses tied to solid revenue growth in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $303.4 million compared to $278.4 million in 2025, an increase of 9% in the quarter and improving 7.3% on an acquisition-adjusted basis. This was the strongest growth we've seen since resurgence from the COVID-19 pandemic. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 49.2%, the strongest margin in any quarter of the company's history. Adjusted funds from operations totaled $247.9 million in the second quarter compared to $225.3 million last year, an increase of 10.1%. The diluted AFFO per share grew 8.1% to $2.40 per share versus $2.22 in the second quarter of 2025. Local and regional sales grew for the 21st consecutive quarter and accounted for approximately 77% of billboard revenue in Q2. It has been over 5 years since the portfolio last experienced a year-over-year decline in local and regional sales, which was due to COVID. National sales performance was extremely robust and grew to represent 23% of our book, up from 18% last quarter. On the capital expenditure front, total spend for the quarter was $42.7 million, including $14.7 million of maintenance CapEx. And for the full year, we anticipate total CapEx of approximately $186 million with maintenance CapEx comprising $65 million. As for our balance sheet, we have a well-laddered debt maturity schedule with no maturities until the AR securitization in October 2027 and no senior notes maturity until February 2028. We will likely extend the securitization later this year, assuming market conditions remain favorable. The company currently has approximately $3.5 billion in total consolidated debt and our weighted average interest rate is 4.5% with a weighted average debt maturity of 4 years. As defined under our credit facility, we ended the quarter with total leverage of 2.9x net debt-to-EBITDA, which remains amongst the lowest levels ever for the company. Our secured debt leverage was 0.7x at quarter end, and we are in compliance with both our total debt incurrence and secured debt maintenance test against covenants of 7x and 4.5x, respectively. For the full year, we expect total leverage to hover around 3 turns with secured leverage coming in comfortably below 1x net debt-to-EBITDA. In addition, our latest 12-month interest coverage through June 30 was 7.1x adjusted EBITDA to cash interest, further demonstrating the strength of the company's balance sheet. As Sean mentioned, M&A has been active thus far in 2026. We continue to benefit from an investment capacity well over $1 billion with the ability to deploy this capital while remaining at or below the high end of our target leverage range of 3.5 to 4x net debt-to-EBITDA. Our liquidity and access to capital both remain strong. At quarter end, we had $720 million in total liquidity, comprised of $68 million of cash on hand and $652 million available under our revolver. The AR securitization was fully drawn with $250 million outstanding. Subsequent to quarter end, the company repaid $55 million on the revolving credit facility, and we currently have $35 million outstanding. In this morning's release, we revised our full year outlook and now expect diluted AFFO per share of $8.75 to $8.90, an increase of $0.22 at the midpoint. Cash interest in our guidance totaled $155 million and assumes no change in short-term floating interest rates for the balance of the year. As I touched on earlier, maintenance CapEx is budgeted for $65 million in 2026 and cash taxes are projected to come in around $12 million, which is slightly higher than our original expectations. And finally, our dividend. We paid a cash dividend of $1.60 per share in each of the first and second quarters. Management's recommendation for the third quarter will be to increase the dividend to $1.65 per share, and this recommendation is subject to Board approval, and we will communicate the Board's decision. For the full year, we expect to distribute a regular dividend of at least $6.50 per share. The proposed $6.50 distribution results in a yield of 4.1% at yesterday's closing stock price. However, given our performance in Q1 and Q2 and expectations for the remainder of the year, it is likely that we will request approval for a special dividend at year-end. This is consistent with our practice in years past to ensure distribution of 100% of our taxable income. As a reminder, the company's dividend is based on taxable income, subject to Board approval, and our dividend policy remains to distribute 100% of our taxable income on an annual basis. Again, we are pleased with an extremely strong start to the first half of the year as well as the momentum that has continued into the third quarter, and we look forward to executing on our strategy in the third and fourth quarters. I will now turn the call back over to Sean.

Thanks, Jay. I'll touch on some familiar metrics and then open it up for questions. While all regions are doing well, I'll give a special shout out to the Southwest and Atlantic regions, which are showing the best growth both in Q2 and year-to-date. As mentioned, Q2 same board digital growth was 6.5%, while total digital revenue growth was 15.4% and digital now comprises 33.3% of total revenues. And has been the case and as has been the case for some time now, the bulk of our growth in static has come from rate. For example, in our Marquee bulletin product, rate was up 3.7% in Q2. We ended Q2 with 5,730 digital units in operation, an increase of 177 units over year-end 2025. Also, as mentioned, national programmatic had an exceptional Q2, increasing nearly 16% and combined comprised 22.7% of our total book of business, while local and regional made up 77.3%. On top categories of business, services continues to set records, up 15.4% in Q2. We also saw strong growth from retail, up 6.5%; financial, up 9.7%; gaming up 9.2%, and building and construction up 10.2%. Finally, political also continues to set records with political pacings for this year running significantly ahead of the 2024 cycle. '24 ended up with approximately $29 million in total political. I'll be disappointed if we don't reach low to mid-30s of millions this year. Katie, I'll now open it up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Jonnathan Navarrete with TD Cowen.

Could you help us separate what is already booked for the second half from what's still the shorter lead time demand and whether the strength is broad-based across both during the fourth quarter? And the second question I have is, perhaps I heard wrong, but did you say that you guys are weeks away from completing your second UPREIT transaction?

Yes. I'll hit the second question first. Yes, we have -- we expect to close our second UPREIT transaction sometime next week. We're pleased with the reception we're getting out there to sellers that see that as a very attractive way to really join forces with Lamar, stay in the business, but also in a very tax-efficient way, monetize their billboard assets. So we're encouraged by what we're seeing out there in terms of, again, receptivity for an UPREIT transaction. The first question was regarding bookings...

For the second half -- yes, for the second half and like what's already booked versus what still depends on the shorter lead time demand and whether you see this trend pretty equal in the third and fourth quarter?

Sure. So we're booked to goal, we're booked at about 85% to 90%. So we still have 10% to 15% left to sell in the period for the period to hit all of our goals. And pacings are strong. We feel good about it.

Okay. And perhaps one more question is just what kind of -- like how do you guys think about we should do an UPREIT transaction versus, I don't know, other forms of financing transaction? How does -- what's the thought process like? And what's the strategy like going forward? Do you see this becoming a more common occurrence for Lamar? Or is it more like a one-off kind of special occasion?

We view it as -- number one, we're always going to do transactions that are accretive to AFFO per share. So that's rule #1, right? And so anytime we are issuing shares, we want to make sure that we do so accretively. If we view it as another arrow in our arsenal to do attractive, accretive acquisitions. It's really up to the seller. It's -- again, it's a very attractive way for sellers in a very tax-efficient manner to sell their inventory, yet also hitch their wagon to Lamar and enjoy the upside that we've delivered for folks that do UPREIT transactions with us. So we do see it happening more and more, and we're getting more and more inbound queries from folks in the billboard business that want to explore it.

Our next question will come from Alexey Philippov with JPMorgan.

Sean, you called out revenue was up almost 5% acquisition adjusted in April on the prior call, and the second result came in much stronger at 6%. Can you help us unpack the monthly cadence through May to June? And what you've seen so far in July and August? And then with the guidance upgrade, what's the underlying organic growth that you assume for the full year? I think you started with 3.6% in February. And what's the number that you have in mind right now? And the final one on UPREIT, is it fair to expect a similar size to were there? And also, do you include this deal in your new guidance?

So last question first. No, this is a smaller UPREIT transaction. It's in the sort of mid-30s-ish. And at the end of the day, we are encouraged to actually be able to roll out an UPREIT transaction with a smaller asset size. It means we can do more of them. We're not -- I'm not going to guide to a specific pro forma growth number for the year, but it will be north of 5-ish, right? If you did pencil out what we laid out there in terms of the rest of the year looking much like Q2, that's the arithmetic -- you'll get to that arithmetic. Same board digital is a bright spot. And I would encourage that you hold us accountable to same board digital growing faster than the static base because we're deploying a lot of capital to grow that platform. And if it's not showing same board growth, then we have to question whether or not it's capital well spent. Right now, we're extremely encouraged, and we are putting up digital as fast as we can.