Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.CCONYSE
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Operator: Hello, and welcome to Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] Also, as a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Laura Kiernan, VP of Investor Relations. Laura, please go ahead.
Laura Kiernan: Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. On the call today are Scott Wells, our CEO; and David Sailer, our CFO. They will provide an overview of the third quarter 2025 operating performance of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. We recommend that you download the third quarter 2025 earnings presentation located in the Financial Information section of our Investor Relations website and review the presentation during this call. After an introduction and review of our results, we will open the line for questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding the company, including statements about its future financial performance and its strategic goals. All forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs or projections will be achieved or that actual results will not differ from expectations. Please review the statements of risk contained in our earnings press release and on our filings with the SEC. During today's call, we will also refer to certain measures that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. We provide schedules that reconcile these non-GAAP measures with our reported results on a GAAP basis as part of the earnings presentation. When reviewing the earnings presentation, it is important to reiterate that all European and Latin American operations are reported as discontinued operations for all periods presented. This includes our current business in Spain, our former business in Brazil, which was sold on October 1, our former businesses in Mexico, Chile and Peru, which were sold on February 5; and our former Europe North segment, which was sold on March 31. Our reported consolidated results include the America and Airport segments and Singapore. Also, please note that the information provided on this call speaks only to management's views as of today, November 6, 2025, and may no longer be accurate at the time of replay. Please see Slide 4 in the earnings presentation, and I will now turn the call over to Scott.
Scott Wells: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us today. Many thanks to those of you who were able to participate in our Investor Day in September. We hope you came away with a clear understanding of our vision, strategy and financial goals as we center all our efforts on accelerating our revenue growth in the U.S., increasing our cash generation and reducing debt. Turning to our results. On a consolidated basis, we generated revenue of $405.6 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 8.1%. This was driven by record third quarter revenue levels in both segments. Our Americas segment grew 5.9% with our 18th consecutive quarter of year-over-year local revenue growth, and Airports delivered another great quarter with 16.1% year-over-year revenue growth. We saw growth in key markets, including New York and San Francisco, in national and local sales channels and in digital and programmatic sales. Categories that continue to perform well across the company include banking, legal services and technology, including AI. We remain on track to achieve our financial guidance for the year as we benefit from our focus on customer centricity, accelerating technology capabilities and sales execution and further strengthening our balance sheet. Our transition into a U.S.-focused company has improved our risk profile while allowing us to focus our management team on a range of initiatives to drive more business across our platform while pursuing operating efficiencies through our zero-based budgeting effort. In addition to our financial results, we announced some important milestones during and shortly after the third quarter as we continue simplifying and derisking our company. On September 7, we entered into an agreement to sell our business in Spain to Atres Media for approximately $135 million. On October 1, we closed the sale of our business in Brazil for $15 million. Once the Spanish sale closes, we will have completed international divestitures worth nearly $900 million. We also continue to derisk our capital structure and extend our debt maturity profile with the August debt refinancing. We continue to strategically reinvest in our business and our digital conversion plan remains key as we leverage our reach, data analytics capabilities and verticalized sales teams to expand our presence in the broader advertising market and gain share. Last quarter, I spoke about the success we were having with pharma driven by our advances in technology, analytics and our go-to-market strategy. This quarter, I would like to share another example of how we are leveraging the power of our out-of-home scale to serve brands in major cities like New York with global events like the recent U.S. Open tennis tournament. For this year's tournament, we executed multiple campaigns for national advertisers looking to connect with the massive and highly attractive audience attending the U.S. Open. We delivered an unmatched advertising platform covering thousands of tennis fans throughout their journey from our inventory in the New York airports as they arrived to our newly expanded New York roadside inventory as they travel to and from the city and finally, through our high-profile inventory in and around city field, adjacent to the U.S. open venue. Our business is increasingly surrounding live events with powerful advertising displays in dynamic and integrated ways. This is also a great example of how we're performing on our expanded New York inventory, and I'm pleased to announce that we're ahead of our internal projections for these assets. They are on track to be cash flow positive in year 1. We've lapped the fixed cost site lease headwind and expect to see accelerating growth as we've now fully incorporated them into our network. Diving deeper into our airports platform to show the power of our inventory, a recent study by Nielsen Scarborough found that airports media is the perfect canvas on which to tell a brand story. According to the study, among frequent flyers who noticed airport advertising, 82% read the ads, 61% recalled seeing them and 57% took action after viewing an ad, a clear demonstration of the impact of this medium. Additionally, the study shows that experiential marketing works well in airport settings and in-person brand experiences are highly appealing with 89% of frequent flyers wanting to sample food or beverages and 62% interested in trying new products they had seen advertised in airports. As we execute on our revenue-driving initiatives, we are also on track to deliver a further reduction in our corporate costs. This is enabled by a combination of direct savings related to the sale of our international businesses as well as the additional efficiency opportunities stemming from our zero-based budgeting efforts, as I previously noted. We are on track to deliver the $50 million in corporate cost savings announced during our Investor Day. To sum it up, our business remains healthy in the fourth quarter, and we are on track to deliver on our financial guidance for the year. We now have 90% of our Q4 revenue guidance under contract and our business pipeline remains strong. In addition, we remain on track in pursuing the multiyear goals we discussed at Investor Day of 6% to 8% adjusted EBITDA growth, $200 million in AFFO and net leverage of 7 to 8x by the end of 2028. So the future looks bright for our company as we actively pursue what we believe is a substantial opportunity to unlock shareholder value as a U.S. focused organization and leader in our space. And with that, I will turn the call over to Dave for the financial review.
David Sailer: Thanks, Scott. On to Slide 5 for an overview of our results. The amounts I refer to are for the third quarter of 2025 and the percent changes are the third quarter 2025 compared to the third quarter of 2024, unless otherwise noted. Our results this quarter continued the steady trend we've seen all year with solid revenue growth and strong liquidity, positioning us well to achieve our year-end guidance. Consolidated revenue for the quarter was $405.6 million, an 8.1% increase, in line with our guidance. The increase was driven in part by strong digital revenue and growth across all sales channels. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $132.5 million, up 9.5% and AFFO was $30.5 million, up 62.5%, both within our expectations. On to Slide 6 for the Americas segment third quarter results. America revenue was $310 million, up 5.9%, in line with guidance. The increase reflected growth across both print and digital revenue with continued benefit from the MTA Roadside billboard contract and improvements in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mobile sales were up 5.7% and national sales were up 6.1% on a comparable basis. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $133.4 million, up 3.9% with a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 43.1%. Please see Slide 7 for a review of the third quarter results for Airports. Airports delivered another great quarter with revenue of $95.6 million, up 16.1%, in line with guidance. The increase was driven by digital revenue up 37.4% and strong performance in national sales, which grew 25.2%. Mobile sales were up 3% on a comparable basis. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $21.9 million, up 29.2% with a segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.9%. Moving on to Slide 8. CapEx totaled $13.2 million in the third quarter, down 25.9%, driven by lower digital spend and reduced contractual spend on shelters. Now on to Slide 9. We ended the quarter with liquidity of $366 million, which includes $155 million of cash and $211 million available under the revolvers. Following the amendments of our revolving credit facilities in the second quarter, which extended maturities through June 2030, we completed a $2.05 billion senior secured note offering in August, refinancing $2 billion of existing notes and increasing our weighted average time to maturity to 4.8 years at the time of the refinancing. Through this refinancing and our second quarter debt buybacks, we have maintained essentially flat annualized cash interest, and this does not include interest savings of approximately $28 million from the prepayment of the CCIBV term loans. Now on to Slide 10 and our guidance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. For the fourth quarter, we expect consolidated revenue to be within $441 million to $456 million, representing a 3% to 7% increase over the same period in the prior year. We expect America revenue to be within $322 million to $332 million, representing a 4% to 7% increase over the same period in the prior year and Airports revenue to be within $119 million to $124 million, representing a 3% to 7% increase over the same period in the prior year. Given our year-to-date performance and our outlook for the fourth quarter, we've tightened our consolidated full year revenue guidance range. We now expect consolidated revenue to be within $1.584 billion to $1.599 billion for the year, representing a 5% to 6% increase over the prior year. We continue to expect full year adjusted EBITDA to be within $490 million to $505 million, up 3% to 6% from last year, and we now expect full year AFFO to be within $85 million to $95 million, up 45% to 62% from last year. And we continue to expect full year CapEx to be within $60 million to $70 million. And following our recent capital markets transactions, we continue to anticipate future annualized cash interest of approximately $390 million, assuming no additional activity. As we discussed during Investor Day, we are powering our cash flow flywheel, including growing revenue, expanding margins, increasing AFFO and reducing debt. Through this meaningful debt reduction, we are actively converting enterprise value from debt to equity. And now let me turn the call back to Scott before we take your questions.
Scott Wells: Thanks, Dave. To summarize, we believe we are at a pivotal moment with industry trends in our favor, irreplaceable premium inventory and strong digital capabilities that together create real growth opportunities. The disruption in search and linear TV ad markets makes this the most exciting ad market in which we've operated. As the last mass visual medium with increasing analytic firepower, our industry is poised to gain share if we do the things we need to do. I believe we are doing those things and excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. To that end, I want to thank our company-wide team for their continued dedication and hard work as we pursue this great opportunity. We are confident in our ability to achieve our near-term guidance and long-term goals, including sustainable top line growth, expanded margins and meaningful deleveraging in line with what we discussed on our Investor Day. For those of you who don't recall, we described adjusted EBITDA growth of approximately $115 million by year-end 2028 and applied our then current multiple, yielding value creation of roughly $1.3 billion. We added to that further debt paydown of about $400 million in the same time frame. Taken together, we see this as an opportunity for value creation of approximately $1.7 billion for shareholders based on the plan we laid out with further upside if we realize some of the discontinuities we discussed or see improvement in our valuation multiple. With a streamlined business and a growing digital portfolio, we expect to enter 2026 from a position of strength. And now we welcome your questions. Operator?
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Aaron Watts from Deutsche Bank.
Aaron Watts: A couple of questions for me. I wanted to start with one on the ad environment for both the billboard and airports unit. Can you provide a bit more detail around how advertiser behavior to close out the year is setting the stage for early '26? And I know we've all been waiting for some stronger tailwinds from the ad market. Curious if you feel that momentum building.
Scott Wells: Thanks, Aaron. This is always a tough question to answer from our little quarter of the world. But we really like what we're seeing in the marketplace right now. The year has built how we expected it would. And if you go back to our earlier earnings calls, we sort of described how we thought it would build, and it very much has had momentum build. And has had good strength. We've seen it both in local and in national and probably relative to kind of prior quarters in our book, national has probably been better than what it has been in the last couple of years, and we see that continuing into 2026. I don't know how much I generalize that to the total ad market because I don't have visibility. And I do think the things we called out on Investor Day around disruption in search and disruption in linear TV are providing us some tailwinds. We certainly are hearing from advertisers that we're picking up some share as a result of those disruptions.
Aaron Watts: Okay. That's helpful. And then if I could ask one more. There was a report about interest in the company from a third party. We've also seen public comments from your shareholders encouraging consideration of strategic alternatives. Can you provide us with an update on where all that stands? And has any of this changed how you and the Board are thinking about the strategic future of the company?
Scott Wells: Aaron, we're a public company. You know the rules on this as well as I do. So I'm not going to be able to comment on market speculation.
Aaron Watts: Okay. Fair enough. If I could squeeze one last one in, maybe for Dave. You ended third quarter with around $150 million of cash held in the U.S., assuming Spain closes as expected, you'll have further liquidity coming in. Remind us what minimum amount of cash you would like to keep on hand day-to-day and how you're thinking about priorities for allocation of that excess cash above the minimum over the near-term horizon.
David Sailer: Sure. Thanks for the question. Look, now that we're a U.S. focused business, I've mentioned this in the past. We're probably targeting between $50 million and $75 million of a minimum amount of cash. I think, allows us to weather the seasonality of our business. We have stronger cash generation in the second half of the year. But we're looking to deploy cash in a disciplined way, prioritizing our near-term debt as we look forward. But prioritizing the paydown of debt, as we mentioned before, is a priority for the business, in addition to obviously investing in the business as well.
Operator: Our next question is from David Karnovsky from JPMorgan.
David Karnovsky: Scott, you noted in the release strength in the Northern California market for billboard and airport. I was hoping to just drill in more. Maybe you could speak to what's improved, where you're seeing that incremental demand? And then just as a follow-up, just with the government shutdown, any impact here either due to government as a category or maybe looking ahead, just the potential for air traffic reductions and what that could mean to the airports business?
Scott Wells: Sure. Thanks, David. On NORCAL, there are a few things that have been going San Francisco's way of late. And I think number one is that the city reputation has bounced back, and that has caused broader advertiser interest in the market. A couple of years ago, we suffered as the kind of reputation of where San Francisco was degraded. We're now benefiting from a lot of changes that the city has made cleaning itself up and making progress, and that has helped. I think the second thing and from a dollar level, this might actually be bigger, but it's just kind of one vertical, but it's the tech vertical and specifically AI has been absolutely focused on out-of-home as a vehicle to promote the companies that are emerging in that space, both the big ones and smaller ones. So whenever you have a geographic area with finite inventory where there's a lot of competition to get the word out, that is good. We are a supply and demand business, and this is something that we're benefiting from both in the road side and in airports. So we're very happy about the direction San Francisco is moving in right now. On your second point about government shutdowns, we have not seen anything disrupting things to date. Obviously, we are watching it very closely, but we really have not seen a drop in air traffic. The delays have been episodic and around the system, but have not, at this point, driven any dialogue. So, really nothing to report on that. Probably for us, the government shutdown impacts us more in our Washington, Baltimore market, where just that is not an area that advertisers are necessarily prioritizing much because commercial activity is somewhat diminished in that area. But honestly, it's not enough for us to see in the numbers at this point. Anyway, I'm just saying that, that would be more where I would look at our portfolio for an impact of it.
Operator: Our next question is from Lance Vitanza from TD Cowen.
Lance Vitanza: Nice job on the quarter. On the Americas, you mentioned strength in San Francisco and New York, but not in L.A. And I'm wondering if you could give an update on the prospects for, I guess, entertainment as a national category, but also L.A. as a local market. And then actually, I'll just throw in auto insurance as a national category, too. I'd be curious to know how those 3 are shaping up.
Scott Wells: Great. Okay. Lance, that's a broad field. Let me deal with L.A. first. We'll come back to insurance. This has been a tough year in L.A. starting with the fires in January and all of the movement in the entertainment space. Entertainment is being cultivated by lots of different cities around the country and around the world, frankly, for production. And I think we've all seen the articles exploring how entertainment is "moving out of L.Aâ€. I think L.A. would still very much assert itself as the entertainment capital of the world. But that obviously is something that is coveted and that other people are impacting. And we have not seen the entertainment vertical. It's been kind of a laggard all year for us. I don't think that makes us think that that's a permanent condition, but L.A. is going through a phase like many cities go through. I mean we just talked about San Francisco with David a minute ago. The outlook in 2023 was very bleak. And here we are 2 years later, and it's a shining star. And I think I'm a big believer in L.A. I'm a big believer in L.A. bouncing itself back. And as the entertainment industry evolves and as the rebuilding starts to take hold, which has taken longer, I think, than any of us would have hoped, I think you're going to see L.A. reassert itself and get itself moving in the right direction again. I do have a lot of faith that Los Angelinos are going to burnish their city and get it moving in the right direction. But it has been a laggard for us this year. We're looking forward to talking about its renaissance though soon. In auto insurance, that's a brighter picture. That market, and you and I have talked about this a lot in the last couple of years. They were a really big category for us pre-COVID. Post-COVID, they had shrunk quite a lot. And we're seeing auto insurance come back and the activity that I'm seeing heading into 2026 makes me feel like this is going to have some durability. So I'm hopeful that we'll be talking about auto insurance as a success story for us here over the next couple of years. It's moved in the right direction. It will be a grower for us this year, but I think there's still plenty of upside to that vertical for us.
Lance Vitanza: If I could pivot to New York, and you've talked a bit about that in the prepared remarks, but I'm concerned about New York City going forward and perhaps falling into a sort of a San Francisco style slide. And so I'm just wondering if you could just clarify relative to, I guess, OUTFRONT is really the big competitor. Are you more or less exposed to the New York City marketplace in terms of like revenue contribution relative to other areas?
Scott Wells: So I don't know their numbers off the top of my head, but I would guess that they are more exposed than we because MTA Subway is a bigger contract than the Port Authority and airports, and they probably have, of the other assets sprinkling around probably somewhat more. But you need to talk to them about what percentage of their revenue it is. For us, it's an increased percentage as a result of the roadside contract MTA that we picked up a year ago. But we very much believe that New Yorkers have grit and that they're going to navigate the uncertainty that the most recent election lays out just fine. So we feel good about New York. We feel good about New York as a cultural and commercial center for the country and for, frankly, the world. So I appreciate your concern, but we feel good about New York's prospects.
Lance Vitanza: One last one, if I could, regarding the Spain sale. If I recall, this is your second attempt at selling the asset. And so I'm wondering if there's anything in particular that makes you more comfortable that this transaction ultimately gets approved, whereas the last one, if I recall, got blown up by the regulators.
Scott Wells: Your recollection is correct. The first attempted sale was to a direct competitor in the marketplace. This sale is to someone who does not participate in the out-of-home space. They are a media company, but they don't participate in out-of-home. It's in the regulators' hands, Lance, but I can assure you, we did a lot of diligence on that as we were evaluating the process, and we're hopeful that this will be something that is acceptable to the regulator.
Operator: Our next question is from [ Avi ] Steiner from JPMorgan.
Avi Steiner: A fair bit has already been asked. Maybe 1 or 2 things here. Political was a minor bump in the past from a revenue perspective, but I couldn't help notice more political advertising on billboards, at least on my commute than in recent memory, both from candidates and also new prediction market betting sites. And I was wondering if, a, that was helpful at all into the November election. I'm not looking for specific guidance. And is that potential upside as you kind of think into next year?
Scott Wells: Thanks, Avi. And I appreciate that you're noting billboards and other outdoor advertising on your commute. You're like many of the commuters out there. We -- political is down this year as a result of a presidential year. So to your specific question, it was not a contributor, particularly to our Q3 results. I do think we have been working as have our competitors for years to get political campaigns to use out-of-home more. The U.S. is probably uniquely for our -- particularly state and federal elections, a smaller user of out-of-home than other geographies around the world, which it should not be. That doesn't make a lot of sense. Politicians, the world overuse out-of-home with a lot of success and U.S. politicians take a page out of that playbook. So that's my advertisement. But look, I think that 2026 it won't be like a presidential year, but I do think that there's some prospect of some uplift from it, not something that I think is going to make or break our year, but this is a category we'd like to see spend more with us.
Avi Steiner: Great. And one last one for me. This was a slower tuck-in acquisition year for, I would say, most of the industry. And as you look into '26, do you think there might be more opportunities to kind of, at the margin, bolster the portfolio? And if so, I'm curious where you think seller expectations might be among maybe the smaller operators.
Scott Wells: Thanks, Avi. Yes, look, expectations are always high among the smaller operators on what payment is due and things like that. It's always hard to call what the macro M&A market is going to be like. Obviously, our participation in that market is always pretty limited just given our balance sheet. We are very targeted. Obviously, one of the things we have talked about in our creative commercial solutions is partnering with the people to be able to do some of that, and that may be something that changes our participation in it. But I think with M&A in this space, it's a question of the operators being comfortable that they're selling into a good environment. And I think the environment is solid. So it was a quiet year in 2025, but I would not be surprised if we saw a little bit more activity I don't think that we've had an environment that people's expectations should be wildly out of the realm, but that's probably a positive in terms of being likely to get activity done, but don't really have a deeply informed view of that.
Operator: Our next question is from Daniel Osley from Wells Fargo.
Daniel Osley: So you recently launched your new in-campaign measurement solution and some of your peers have also released new measurement tools as well. So taking a step back, can you speak to the progress you're seeing in addressing out-of-home's historical measurement challenges? Any early feedback you've gotten from advertisers? And are there any updates on GeoPath?
Scott Wells: Great. Thanks, Daniel, and thanks for noticing all of the activity and measurement in our space. I think it's exciting and it's a positive for the industry. On the in-flight insights to which you refer, feedback from advertisers has been positive. We've sold a number of campaigns with it, and it's definitely driving a lot of dialogue right now. So I'm optimistic that, that's going to be something that's a good tool in our toolbox. To your broader question about GeoPath, there is an industry effort going on where the Boards of the [ OAAA ] and Geopath have brought in an industry expert to help us develop a viewpoint on what next-generation outdoor measurement should be. And that effort is ongoing. It's going smoothly. It's in the stage now where vendors are being solicited and an architecture is being framed out. And I would expect that's something that Q1 of next year, we're going to get to a point where we have a sense of what investment is required and we can have the industry conversation about how we actually make that happen. It's not at a point that we can say it's going to happen in exactly one form or another, but I'm encouraged by the enthusiasm every part of the out-of-home community has, the buy side and the sell side for taking a hard look at this. I think everybody recognizes that a better quality currency that everybody can be very, very confident in would be a positive development.
Daniel Osley: That's helpful. And as a quick follow-up, to the extent that you've started conversations with advertisers on term renewals, can you speak to how those conversations are going and how any price increases are coming in compared to prior years?
Scott Wells: Great. Yes. No, thanks, Daniel. You remember our calendar well. For other folks, we always talk about our upfront, our version of an upfront happening kind of between October and February. So we're kind of a quarter of a way in-ish to the time frame on that. And we're encouraged. The early dialogue has been positive. We're seeing solid increases as we do the renewals and there are definitely some very positive developments in terms of people looking to expand their footprint. So touch wood, it's off to a good start, Daniel.
Operator: Our final question is from Pat Sholl from Barrington Research.
Patrick Sholl: With the CapEx guidance that you provided, to the extent that we get, I guess, a favorable resolution of the tariff issue, would you look to accelerate that in the coming years?
Scott Wells: Look, from a tariff standpoint, there's been a little bit of an effect from a company standpoint. We're seeing an increase in steel. But overall, that really has not had really any impact from a CapEx standpoint and what we're going to invest in the business. You probably noticed our CapEx was down in the third quarter, and that's really more on timing of when we're putting digital in the ground. So not really a huge impact. We also had some shelter that we had to do last year, which we did not this year, which is really driving CapEx being down year-over-year. Airports is pretty consistent year-over-year third quarter last year to this year. But overall, going back from a tariff standpoint, I think the team, we've managed that pretty well. We'll see where that goes into next year, but that really hasn't been part of the decision-making process from a CapEx standpoint.
Patrick Sholl: Okay. And then I guess with the sales process in Brazil largely, all the international markets largely complete, do you have like an update on just like the expense reduction expectations for on the corporate side or like any additional cost takeouts on that? Or is that largely complete?
Scott Wells: No. It's very similar to what we talked about during Investor Day when we were a global company with all our business units in Europe and Latin America and the U.S., we had corporate expenses roughly in the $135 million range. We mentioned on Investor Day, we went through the process that we're going to take $50 million of cost out, which would leave you in the mid-80s range from a corporate expense standpoint. During that call, we had line of sight to roughly $40 million of that $50 million. We're working on that, and we'll get to that run rate sometime in 2026. So I think that's all on track from that standpoint. very similar to what we talked about during Investor Day.
Operator: There are no more questions. So I'll now turn the call back over to Scott Wells for any closing remarks.
Scott Wells: Thank you. And I'd like to thank all of our listeners again for taking the time to listen to our call. Like we said before, this is an exciting time in our industry and for our company. I wanted to end by reiterating what we've tried to make clear in each of our investor updates. Our Board, consistent with its fiduciary duties, is open to all avenues to create long-term shareholder value. The Board and company are actively working with advisers to evaluate a range of available pathways to do so. We can't guarantee that any particular outcome will be achieved, and we plan to make an update only if and when there's something concrete to report. But make no mistake, this is an effort about which the Board is very serious. Thanks again for joining our call.