Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc's 2022 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star related by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now turn the conference over to host Eileen McLorlin, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for joining our call. On the call today are Scott Wells, our CEO, and Brian Coleman, our CFO. Scott and Brian will provide an overview of the 2022 second quarter operating performance of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. and Clear Channel International, BV. We recommend you download the investor presentation located in the financial section in our investor site and review the presentation during this call. After an introduction and a review of our results, we'll open the line for questions. And Justin Cochran, CEO of Clear Channel Europe, will participate in the Q&A portion of the call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we may 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 our filings with the SEC. During today's call, we will also refer to certain performance 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 our earnings release and the earnings conference call investor presentation. Also please note that the information provided on this call speaks only to management views as of today August 9th, 2022, and may no longer be accurate at the time of a replay. Please turn to slide four in the investor presentation, and I will now turn the call over to Scott Wells.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join today's call. We delivered consolidated revenue of $643 million during the second quarter, representing an increase of 21% over last year's second quarter. Excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, second quarter consolidated revenue was up 28% ahead of the consolidated revenue guidance we provided on our first quarter earnings call. If you include our first quarter performance, consolidated revenue is up 35% through the first half of the year, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates. A great start to the year, and we remain optimistic about the second half. During the second quarter, we also delivered a significant improvement in both operating income and adjusted EBITDA. Our solid performance was once again driven by broad-based demand from advertisers, with particular strength across our digital footprint in the Americas and Europe. I'm grateful for our team's consistent focus on building our business, especially during a period that has been anything but normal. We're demonstrating the power of our platform in new and creative ways and we're making headway in attracting new advertisers and deepening our presence across multiple categories. Thus far this year, we believe the out of home industry and our company have benefited from the advances we've brought to the fold as an industry, combined with the movement among many brands to reduce their exposure to an oversaturated digital display and search market. Our resiliency is further supported by the growing contribution from our digital boards. During the second quarter, Digital revenue, which accounted for 39% of consolidated revenue, rose over 50%, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates compared to the second quarter of last year in both the Americas and Europe. Looking at our digital footprint, in the U.S., we deployed 29 large format digital billboards during the second quarter, adding to our total of more than 1,600 digital billboards. Combined with our smaller format digital displays in airports and on shelters, we have a total of more than 3,200 digital displays domestically. And in Europe, we added 281 digital displays in the second quarter for a total of over 18,800 digital displays now live. We continue innovating and modernizing our asset base and operating infrastructure. We're making our solutions faster to launch, easier to buy, and more data driven, which is expanding the pool of advertisers we can pursue. Turning to the second half of the year, Our business is continuing to perform well as advertisers tap into our resources to build mindshare and position their brands for success. In the U.S., our bookings remain healthy and are on track to handily exceed 2019 annual levels. Digital continues to drive the improvement as well as airports, which is benefiting from a strong rebound in travel, including in the New York airports. Entertainment, retail and high fashion, business services, and amusement spending are all strong. while the insurance and beverage categories remain a bit of a headwind. Additionally, we're seeing particular strength in our Northern California, Southwest, and Midwest regions. In Europe, overall bookings for the third quarter are pacing ahead of last year and 2019. We're benefiting from continued growth in digital, as well as the recovery of transit. With regard to Q4, I should note that we expect to see some benefit from the World Cup, as advertising demand related to the tournament is expected to increase in addition to seasonal holiday spending. Brian will provide an overview of our third quarter guidance in his prepared remarks. Looking at the broader economy, we're keeping a close watch on business trends. As we have demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have levers to moderate our costs should the need arise, and we remain committed to ensuring that we have ample liquidity on our balance sheet. The resilience of our platform has been borne out during challenging periods in the past, and we feel good about where we are today. particularly with regard to our digital capabilities and the flexibility and efficiency they give us in serving our customers and adjusting the changing market conditions. Finally, as originally announced in December 2021, we continue to conduct a strategic review of our European business. Our goal has been and remains optimizing our portfolio in the best interest of our shareholders, both through a potential transaction or transactions and through the resulting greater focus on our core America's business. As you all know, since the time we began the strategic review, there has been a negative shift in the environment for consummating transactions and for obtaining related financing, which has raised hurdles to transact for the whole of our European business. Still, it is worth noting that in the second quarter, our European business rebounded to pre-COVID-19 revenue and margin levels. The interactions we've had with potential buyers to date have convinced us that a single transaction, while potentially possible in theory, may not be the ideal path to take to accomplish our goal. In light of these developments, we're focusing on strategic dialogues with potential acquirers regarding the disposition of certain of our lower margin or lower priority European assets. If we are able to complete those types of sales, we expect our remaining European perimeter to have substantially higher EBITDA minus CapEx margins than our current European business does, and to be more able to meet its own cash needs. Also, if we're able to complete those types of sales, we believe that our remaining European perimeter could be helpful in bringing our leverage down over time through the generation of net free cash flow and net sales proceeds for potential dispositions if and when the deal-making environment improves. We cannot guarantee the timing or success of our efforts to dispose of those lower margin or lower priority assets, and we will communicate further details as and when we are able. With that, let me turn it over to Brian to discuss our financial results as well as our guidance.

Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. As Scott mentioned, we had another great quarter, and we remain optimistic about our business in the second half of the year. However, we do recognize the market is concerned about a potential softening in the business environment, and we believe we are ready to respond as appropriate. Moving on to the results on slide five. Before discussing our results, I want to remind everyone that during our GAAP results discussion, I'll also talk about our results excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, a non-GAAP measure. We believe this provides greater comparability when evaluating our performance. To avoid repetition, the amounts I refer to are for the second quarter of 2022, and percent changes are second quarter 2022 compared to the second quarter of 2021, unless otherwise noted. Consolidated revenue was $643 million, a 21.1% increase. Excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, consolidated revenue was up 27.9% to $679 million, exceeding our consolidated revenue guidance. Consolidated net loss was $65 million compared to a net loss of $124 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $164 million. up substantially compared to $97 million in the second quarter of 2021. Excluding movements in foreign exchange, adjusted EBITDA was slightly higher at $169 million. Please turn to slide six for a review of the America's second quarter results. America's revenue was $346 million, up 27.4%, and even more significant, surpassed pre-COVID revenue levels, with revenue up 5.8% compared to Q2 of 2019. We continue to see increases in revenue across most of our products, primarily driven by airport displays and billboards. Digital revenue, which accounted for 38% of America's revenue, was up 53.2% to $130 million, driven by both airports and billboards. National sales, which accounted for 38.6% of America's revenue, was up 30% with local sales accounting for 61.4% of America's revenue and up 25.9%. Direct operating and SG&A expenses were up 36.4%. The increase is due in part to a 49.4% increase in flight lease expense to $114 million, driven by higher revenue primarily in our airport business and a $17 million decline in negotiated rent abatements. Compensation costs were higher due to improved operating performance and increased headcount, as well as higher credit loss expense related to higher current year revenue and prior year reductions in the allowance for credit losses. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $149 million, up 16.9%, with segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 43%. Turning to slide seven. This slide breaks out our America's revenue into billboard and other, and transit. Billboard and other, which primarily includes revenue from bulletins, posters, street furniture displays, spectaculars, and wall scapes, was up 14.9% to $281 million. This performance was driven by higher revenue yields and digital billboard deployments, with all our regions driving growth, with particular strength in our California and Southwest regions. Transit was up 140.6%, with airport display revenue up 148.6% to $61 million. Airport revenue was helped by the rebound in airline passenger traffic. Now on to slide eight for a bit more detail on billboard and other. Billboard and other digital revenue continued to rebound strongly in the second quarter and was up 28.3% to $96 million. and now accounts for 34.1% of total billboard and other revenue, an increase over Q1. Non-digital billboard and other revenue was up 9%. Next, please turn to slide 9 for a review of our performance in Europe in the second quarter. My commentary is on results that have been adjusted to exclude movements in foreign exchange rates. Europe revenue increased 27.8%, driven by improvements across all products, most notably street furniture and transit, and almost all countries led by France, Sweden, and the UK. Europe revenue for the second quarter was also up compared to the 2019 comparable period, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates. Digital accounted for 38% of Europe's total revenue and was up 50.6%, driven by an increase in digital revenue across all markets. This growth in digital was primarily driven by the UK, France, and Sweden. Direct operating and SG&A expenses were up 2.1%. The increase was driven in part by increased site lease expense, which was up 13.2%, resulting from higher revenue and a $3 million reduction in negotiated rent abatements, as well as the lower government-risk subsidies. In addition, compensation costs were higher, driven by improvements in operating performance. These were partially offset by lower costs for our restructuring plan to reduce headcount in Europe. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $50 million, a substantial improvement over the $2 million in Q2 of 2021. Segment adjusted EBITDA margins rebounded and are in line with pre-COVID-19 levels in Q2 2019. Moving on to CCIBV. Our Europe segment consists of the businesses operated by CCIBV and its consolidated subsidiaries. Accordingly, the revenue for our Europe segment is the same as the revenue for CCIBV. Europe's segment adjusted EBITDA, the segment profitability metric reported in our financial statements, does not include an allocation of CCIVV's corporate expenses that are deducted from CCIVV's operating income and adjusted EBITDA. Europe and CCIVV revenue increased $33 million during the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of 2021 to $280 million. After adjusting for a $35 million impact, From movements in foreign exchange rates, Europe and CCIDV revenue increased $69 million. CCIDV operating income was $16 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to an operating loss of $40 million in the same period of 2021. Let's move the slide to a quick review of others, which consists of our Latin American operations. Similar to Europe, my commentary is on the results that have been adjusted to exclude movements in foreign exchange rates. Other revenue was up 38.1% driven by improvements in all countries. Direct operating and SG&A expenses were up 16.6% driven by higher site lease expense related to higher revenue. In addition, compensation costs were higher driven by increased headcount. And segment adjusted EBITDA was $2 million, an improvement over the prior year's segment adjusted EBITDA of negative $1 million. Now moving to slide 11 and a review of capital expenditures. CapEx totaled $45 million, an increase of $13 million compared to the second quarter of the prior year as we ramped up our spending, particularly on digital and the Americas. In addition to our capital expenditures, I also want to highlight that during the second quarter, we made several asset acquisitions totaling $22 million in our Americas segment. Now on to slide 12. Year-to-date cash and cash equivalents declined $96 million to $315 million as of June 30, 2022. And during the second quarter, cash and cash equivalents declined $117 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $164 million contributed positively to our cash balance for the quarter and was more than offset by cash interest payments, net capital investment, and net working capital requirements. Our debt was $5.6 billion as of June 30, a slight decline from year end, primarily due to scheduled quarterly principal payments on our term loan facility. Cash paid for interest on the debt was $110 million during the second quarter, an increase of $43 million compared to the same period in the prior year, primarily due to the timing of interest payments related to the refinancing completed in 2021. Our weighted average cost of debt is 6%, a slight increase from year-end due to the increase in LIBOR rates. Our liquidity is $528 million as of June 30, down compared to liquidity at year end, primarily due to the reduction in cash. As of June 30, 2022, our first lien leverage ratio was 4.9 in times, well below the covenant threshold of 7.6 times. Moving on to slide 13 and our outlook for the business for Q3. At this point in time, we believe our consolidated revenue will be between $625 million and $645 million. in Q3 2022, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates. America's revenue is expected to be between $340 million and $350 million. And Europe's revenue is expected to be between $270 and $280 million, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates. Based on month-end July exchange rates, foreign currency could result in a low to mid-teen percent headwind to year-over-year revenue growth in Europe's third quarter. We expect consolidated capital expenditures to be in the $185 to $205 million range in 2022, a slight decrease compared to the guidance we provided during our first quarter earnings call. This is due in part to movement in foreign exchange rates, as well as changes in project timing. We expect to spend approximately 60% related to the Americas and 40% related to Europe and other. We anticipate roughly 70% of these expenditures being capex to grow the business, including expenditures made to deploy new structures or displays, primarily digital, or to renew existing contracts. Additionally, we anticipate having approximately 341 million of cash interest paying obligations in 2022, including 180 million in the second half of this year, and $372 million of cash interest and obligations in 2023, assuming current interest rates remain and that we do not refinance or incur additional debt. And now, let me turn the call back to Scott for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Brian. Advertising demand remains healthy, and we're pleased with the positive trends we're seeing in our business and our industry in the current quarter. As you may have seen, this morning we announced our first Investor Day will take place in New York City on September 8th. I look forward to seeing many of you in person and having an opportunity to discuss our strategy for the Americas business in more detail, as well as our expanded financial disclosure and financial outlook. And now let me turn over the call to the operator for the Q&A session. And Justin Cochran, our CEO of Europe, will join us on the call.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Stephen Cahal from Wells Fargo. Stephen, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. So maybe first just a couple of questions on Europe and the strategic review there. Could you remind us maybe of some of the major markets that you plan in Europe and any sense of how much the markets that you're considering divesting could represent in that business? And if maybe that's a bit too specific, could you comment on whether or not you would expect potential transactions to be deleveraging, especially when including maybe some of the overhead costs that might go away?

Hey, Steve. Thanks for the question. Just in terms of the big markets that we're in, we have a big business in France. We have a big business in the UK. We have meaningful businesses across the Nordics, Italy and Spain. And we have a good presence in Benelux and Switzerland, I guess, and then a little bit in Eastern Europe. um, as well, but, but the big ones are the, the first, you know, half dozen that I, that I mentioned, um, in terms of your, in terms of your question, you know, we kind of told you what we can, I mean, I kind of feel like we actually went out on a limb a fair bit, um, but we know there's been a lot of chatter and we know it's been a long time. So we wanted to get some sense of how the strategy was evolving, but I think we've kind of given you what we can give you on, um, the, the, the strategy. You can imagine there are a lot of, uh, different moving pieces that make it very hard to answer specific questions about that.

Sure. And then maybe just on America's, the digital growth was really strong. As that continues to be a bigger percentage probably over time of America's revenue, maybe first, how do we think about what sort of pricing you're seeing on digital inventory versus print? And as that mix shift goes more to digital, how should we think about the margins of the America's business? Is it structurally higher, structurally a little more pressured, maybe with a little bit better kind of growth algorithm? So we'd just love to think about that transition.

Yeah, so it's a good question. And the thing about digital is that we're seeing really strong digital growth across portfolio. So not all of it has the same margins. You know, a digital roadside sign has a very different margin structure from a digital sign in an airport because of the nature of the contracts and how things underlie. So, you know, how that mix plays out over time is going to be important. And you still are seeing, and I think we'll probably get other questions on this as we dig in. I'll answer a question you didn't ask. But airports is still comping against – in Q2, airports is still comping against pretty soft numbers. And so airports is differentially influencing the mix as it gets to sort of normalize and, frankly, really perform really quite strongly at this point. So I think as you think about it over multiple years, it will be a tailwind for margins. But it won't be the tailwind for margins you might imagine. And I guess there was a pricing question in there as well. And I'd just say that we're kind of seeing the premium pricing in digital kind of get back to where it historically has been. I don't think that we've seen digital pricing get way out of line from where it was kind of pre-pandemic. I think that addressed a set of things. Remind me if I missed any other part of your question.

Steve, are you there? Did we drop?

Oh, sorry, that was great. Yeah, thank you, Scott. Thanks, Steve.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Cameron McVie from Morgan Stanley. Cameron, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Curious if you guys are seeing any softness as you look ahead in the U.S. market, in the U.S. ad market. And how are you thinking about networking capital for the year now that we are halfway through? Thanks.

So I'll comment on the market conditions and let Brian take the networking capital. You know, our market outlook right now is pretty strong. We have not really seen softening. And I think that You know, I've been paying attention to everybody's earnings announcements. And I think that everybody is trying to piece together what actually is happening in the ad market. And it's been a bit of a mixed bag. And I think one of the things to watch out for, at least as pertains to out of home, I'm pretty sure this will apply to some of my competitors as well, is that really in the second half of this year is when you're going to see us comping against really strong numbers. Q2 of 21 was when we were just starting to see things come out of the pandemic challenges that the industry had and that we had. And, you know, that's not uniform across the world. There are parts of the world that are still not recovered to 2019 levels. Certainly in the US, we've long since kind of eclipsed that in much of our business. But as you look at our numbers, you're going to see the percentage growth rates come down. But I would urge you not to just immediately say, oh, that's because the ad market's softening. Because from a perspective of the dialogue we're having with advertisers, we are not seeing that at this moment. We're not seeing a bunch of cancellations come in. We're not seeing the things that usually hearken to when people are really in pullback mode. And I'm sure that's unique to out of home in some ways, but it's an important distinction, particularly given the volatility of the last couple of years. Brian, why don't you take the networking capital?

Sure. On working capital, we continue to believe as the underlying business normalizes on the tail end of COVID as we get through 2022, we'll see working capital start to normalize vis-a-vis working capital history. There's two components to that. One is seasonality, and our business is very seasonal, so quarter-to-quarter shifts can be dramatic, and Q2 was a strong quarter. But there's also the element of the unwind from the post-COVID environment. And so when you look at things in Q2, like AR, you see a large buildup in AR, a function of seasonality. but also a function of underlying business performance, recovery post-COVID, increase in revenues and consequential increase in AR, both in America and Europe. I would also throw the unwinding of deferred payments into that. It's a much smaller percentage in terms of the impact on working capital, but it is something as we clear through kind of the post-COVID environment, that really is getting flushed out of the system. As we progress through 2022, I think working capital and movements will start to normalize to beat COVID patterns, and I think we're seeing that shift right now.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Cho from JP Morgan. Richard, please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Just wanted to follow up on the one question on the U.S. business and then ask the European question. On the U.S. business, can you talk a little bit about, since you mentioned that we're coming out of this easier comp period to a more difficult one, in your third quarter guidance, like what seasonal trends are impacting that guidance versus like what secular trends that we should be looking at that's maybe offsetting any seasonal weakness or comping issues on a year or three year basis?

So I'll take a run at this, and Brian, why don't you listen closely and see if I miss anything important, and you can weigh in. You know, seasonality operates pretty differently across the global portfolio. Q3 is usually a pretty strong quarter for us. I think in the U.S., it's the third strongest. In Europe, I think it might be, and it's probably also the third strongest in how things go. But when we do our guidance, we are actually looking a lot more at what we see right in front of us. So while seasonality might play a role in how we have our forecasting models and things like that, the guide that we give is based on a lot of data that we have in terms of how bookings are playing, because a lot of these campaigns get booked in advance, especially in the US. So we have that, and I don't think that we actually consciously do a lot of secular factoring in. That kind of gets baked into what we see right in front of us. So like right now, we've talked the last couple quarters about how auto insurance has been soft. That's a known thing, and that's in our bookings, and we are very aware of it. So it's not like we're making a lot of money I mean, when we give this guidance, we're already well into the quarter and have a fair bit of data in front of us. So it's not a big econometric model, I guess, is how I'd characterize it. I don't know, Brian, if there's other color you'd add.

No, the only thing I would add, and I agree with all of what you said, is the business was starting to recover Q3 of last year, and so you are going to see tougher comps. One of the things that we did to help analysts take a look at the component of that that was unusual at one time is we did break out in our reporting renovations, and we broke it out by segment. And hopefully that'll be helpful as you think about the one-time benefits last quarter that we will not see in future quarters, or at least certainly not see to the extent that we saw them. And you can kind of help understand the patterns moving forward. We are going to comp against tougher quarters, and we want to manage expectations, but we still feel very optimistic about the second half of the year and are excited to get there.

Great. And on Europe, the margin was very strong, both in local and despite FX headwinds. How should we think about the margin in that business over the next few quarters?

Well, I'll hit it at a high level, and then I'll let Justin Cochran, who runs the European business, weigh in. I think a positive sign this quarter is we see margins in the European business come very close to 2019 levels. And so we're back to pre-COVID levels based on a strong rebound in recovery in Europe. I don't know, Justin, if you wanted to provide a little more color or detail on how you see margin performance going forward.

Yeah, I think the things I'd say, Brian, are, as Scott said, the European business is, seasonality is pretty similar to the US, but it's probably slightly more extreme. So Q4 is our biggest quarter, Q2 is the next biggest, then Q3, then Q1. Our cost base is very fixed, so you have 75% fixed, 25% variable. So as revenue goes through that seasonal curve, the margin changes through the quarters. So Q4 is our strongest, Q2 the next, and so on. But I think we're at the point now where you can see, I think you can expect see margins similar to what they were in 2019, excluding the one-offs that Brian was mentioning. So we still, if you compare it to 2021, we still had some one-off or at least some COVID coming through because some of the rent abendants came through quite late. So you'd have been seeing them in the third quarter in 21. So there'll be some slightly funny year-on-year comparatives, but excluding that, we're pretty much back to a normal margin profile.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Lance Vertanza from Cowan. Lance, please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice job on the quarter. Let me start in the Americas, seeing good airport growth. Could you talk about how much impact you felt from the new New York, New Jersey Port Authority deal and any help in us thinking about call it, you know, like for like growth? I mean, how the rest of the portfolio kind of grew organically? Well, let me start there.

So, thanks, Lance, and thanks for the question. The New York, New Jersey Port Authority has been in our portfolio for a year and a half now, and so we are overlapping. Admittedly, we're going to be building out inventory over the first number of years of that contract. So there will be expansion in the footprint of it. But the actual contract has actually been baked in and we're overlapping New York, New Jersey Port Authority numbers. It's our biggest contract within airports. And it's a reasonable chunk of the airport's business. But I don't think we've actually disclosed it from a percent of the overall, but it is our largest contract. I'll leave that one at that.

Sure. And I know you mentioned in the prepared remarks that passenger loads obviously were a factor. Could you go into a little bit more detail there? I'm wondering because I guess in the past, and maybe this is no longer relevant, but in the past we really kind of cared about overseas travel more than we cared about domestic travel, business travel, maybe versus vacation travel. You know, my sense is that international overseas business travel is still down a lot from pre-COVID levels. And I'm wondering, number one, is that right? Number two, does it matter as much as we thought it would? And is there additional upside in airports to come to the extent that overseas business travel continues to recover?

Right. So there are two cuts that we've talked about. I don't actually know that we have a good data source for the intersection of those two cuts. But you're talking about international travel and you're talking about business travel. And so I'm going to address those two things separately because I don't think I have the cross tab on the two of them. In terms of international travel, with the COVID requirement, the COVID testing requirement going away, And frankly, with currency being where it's been, international travel is back beyond 2019 levels at this point. So it has, if you just look at pure number of overseas departures, now I can't tell you how much of that is business and how much of that is consumer, but presumably there's a mix. And even within the Consumer part of it, it's a very, very, very premium part of the market. It deals in some of our most premium airports. And so that recovery is playing an important role in the recovery of our airport's business overall. And I would tell you that probably we'll see some tailwind from that. It still is the minority of the revenue that we get, but that tailwind probably won't be fully cleared out until the end of Q1 next year. But again, it's the minority of the revenues international. On business travel, we do have some sources for domestic business travel. And our expectation there is that that will be in the 80% to 85% pre-pandemic level. This is what we're seeing in the sources that we've got. It's kind of, I mean, I imagine that you travel a fair bit, Lance. I know I do. It has gotten a lot harder to get an upgrade. It has gotten a lot harder to, you know, the planes are all very, very full. And my sense is that, you know, just from my street travel, is that the business traveler is back in a pretty meaningful way, at least on the routes that I'm traveling on. And again, our data sources externally suggest that we're going to see that in the 80%, 85% pre-pandemic level. So the point of all this is that airports as a channel for advertising are back. And I think one of the things that has happened with some of our advertisers who did pull back during the pandemic is that they've seen degradation in their performance and their conviction and the importance of airports in their mix is greater than it might have been before. I'll leave that at that and see if that answers your question.

Yeah, it certainly does. Thank you. And then turning to Europe, digital revenue obviously grew 50% XFX. That's great performance. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about – I know you called out the number of digital displays that you added, I think, but I'm just wondering sort of the percentage growth in digital displays – presumably that's up a lot less than the 50% revenue growth. And I guess I'm just trying to get at, you know, if we think about that revenue growth, how much of that was sort of improved yield versus just, you know, better penetration of digital displays?

Sure. Well, I'll let Justin address that. One comment I'd just make in general, though, is that, yeah, our growth in digital displays is going to exceed the growth in panels, you know, pretty much in every geography. But, Justin, why don't you talk a little bit about some of the drivers of that growth and the question he's asking about margin, how it flows through.

Sure. So, if you look at what we disclosed last year, so Q221, we had a 16,600 screens, Q222, 18,800, so a 13%, 1,3% increase in screens. Obviously, You're right, the digital revenue growth is far in excess of digital screen growth. I think there's still some noise in the numbers because when you think back at Q2 2021, we still had some COVID restrictions in place in certain markets, especially somewhere like France where we had things like shopping malls were still closed during Q2 2021. So there's still some noise in the numbers and somewhere like malls is where we're highly digital. you won't really see some really more useful comps until we get into Q3 and Q4 on what's going on with digital because of that noise of COVID. What I would say is, you know, digital, as we deploy more in markets, as we get to scale across different markets, it becomes a stronger and stronger proposition. And that generally helps you grow your yields across digital. And as we start to go down our programmatic journey in yielding, you also start to see some strong sales on digital. So there's a bit of noise in the numbers still, but obviously the percentage revenue increase far outweighing the growth in screens. Once that noise is removed, you'll see closer to the real growth, but I hope that helps in overall comments.

It does. Thank you. And then just to finish up for me, back on the asset sale front, I'm just wondering, I know it's more complicated than this, but, you know, if you couldn't find a buyer at a price that you liked for all of Europe, is it realistic to think that you'll be able to find buyers for the less profitable portions of Europe? And what am I missing there?

Yeah, I think we've, we've kind of said what, like I, like I said to Steve Lance, um, we've kind of gone out on a limb being as descriptive as what we were, um, on what we're doing and why. But, you know, let me just assure you, we were very diligent and thorough and, you know, shook every tree. And we learned a lot in the, we have learned a lot and are continuing to learn a lot in the strategic process that we've done. And, you know, we feel good about what we messaged.

Well, and to that point, I mean, Europe would appear to have some real momentum, right? So I guess it begs the question why you're in such a big hurry to get rid of it in the first place. I mean, I understand that the business doesn't have the margin structure that you have in the US given the asset mix, but that's always been the case. And it just seems like with the increasing digital penetration and the growth rates, it would appear that there, I mean, is there something I'm missing on that front?

Well, I think we've talked about the importance of focus and we've talked a lot about digital transformation and how running digital transformation in one country well is a large execution challenge. And when you get into trying to do it across a really broad set of platforms, you dilute expertise and resources pretty quickly. So I think the reasons that we had for embarking on the strategic process are sound, and they're the right reasons. The marketplace just was not in a place that we were able to get where, as we said in our comments. So I think we've said a lot on this topic. I think our strategy remains to focus, and I think that's pretty much what we can share with you, Lance.

Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Kim from Goldman Sachs. Jason, please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. Can you talk about yield management and your ability to get higher pricing? It's been a strong environment for your business and outdoor advertising in general, but given the current macro picture, are you seeing any pushbacks in terms of price increases?

So, price is always something you negotiate on. You know, if If it was easy, we'd have even more than what we have. So, I mean, I think you should assume that our counterparties are thinking aggressively about value on the dollar that they're receiving. And I think, you know, you touched on measurement. Measurement is one of the tools by which we demonstrate the value of what we're delivering to advertisers I think we have had a very object lesson. I refer to this in airports, but it's true in roadside as well, where people saw impacts on their results and on their brands by having pulled out of out-of-home, and now they have conviction on it. And I would tell you that out-of-home remains kind of the best value play in media. So, of course, there's pushback on pricing, and if it was easy – our results would be even greater than what they are. But I think we have a very sound footing to stand on as we're pricing for the value of our inventory. Hopefully that addresses it. It is a huge array of conversations, very different when you're talking about a rural sign versus something that sits on the Lincoln Tunnel, for instance. So scarcity matters a great deal in this business.

Thank you. That's helpful. And then regarding the European asset sale. So to the extent, the size of the divestiture is smaller. How are you thinking about addressing the, the TCIBD bond maturity in 25? It's a fairly small bond, but they are the first maturity for the company. And maybe just more broadly for Brian, your business fundamentals continue to be strong, but capital markets have become more volatile this year. You've got a good liquidity position, but I wanted to get a sense of your general outlook for your balance sheet strategy, just given the state of the market.

Well, we're somewhat in the fortunate position that we don't have any major maturities for a while, and that was by design when we refinanced a lot of the debt we did post-separation. The first material maturity would be the CCI BV notes that we spoke of. And then kind of pre-current market conditions, I think we were pretty relaxed about, you know, those stayed on top of a discrete stream of cash flow and would be, you know, refinanceable at whatever mid-market rates would be. We still have time, and so I'm not sure it's fair to think about or extrapolate current market conditions to that future point in time. But I also think, you know, we have this strategic review going on, and some of the outcomes of that review may impact our philosophy on the notes. I think in general, as the European perimeter and thus the cash flow stream that supports those notes shrink, either at that time or at the time of refinancing, the size of the note issuance would need to shrink proportionally. And that could be a function of scales proceeds being directed to or being required to be directed to pay down or reinvested in EBITDA-producing assets within the perimeter. But look, by and large, I think we're keeping our eye on it. It's not huge. It does sit upon a discrete cash flow stream. It can be financed in European markets. It can be financed in the U.S. markets or both. I think we have a lot of options. It's not something we're worried about right now unless we trigger something under the repayment provisions. But I think we feel pretty good about being able to refinance it if we want to or being able to address it by repayment or partial repayment if we need to.

Great. That's helpful. Thanks very much, and see you on your investor day in September. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Goss from Barrington Research. Jim, please go ahead.

Good morning. A couple of things, but one more about the separation um does it require that assets be sold or is spin off of some of the assets a possibility within the context of that strategic review and thanks for the focus and the digital transformation i think for very good points to raise for just confiding the nature of the company great well i i think on the on the strategic review i think we

we've taken a broad look and I think we've kind of said what we're, what we're able to say at this time on it, Jim. Um, but you know, there, there wasn't anything that was not on the table, uh, as we, as we contemplated, um, you know, options.

Okay. Um, and you've addressed this a bit also, but in terms of the guidance for the third quarter, um, the domestic, uh, operations didn't seem out of line with what at least we were looking at. But the international was softer. And I wondered if that – did you mean to imply that it's more of a comps issue than a relative weakening there relative to in the United States?

I think I heard the question. I'm going to answer it, and then if I'm not answering it, let me know. But I think the question is, third quarter guidance for Europe may be a little softer than what you're anticipating. I'll have an answer. Let's make sure we're on track and then Justin can weigh in if he'd like to. I think we feel pretty good about Q3. Now, keep in mind the seasonality of the different businesses, and Q3 is the third strongest quarter. So we're coming off a strong quarter for Europe. And then we're heading into Q4, a very strong quarter for Europe. And so Q3 seasonality is part of the mix. I also remind you, and you mentioned it, that the recovery for Europe began in earnest, quite frankly, in Q3 of last year. So I think we are heading up against strong comps. I would emphasize those comments over any perceived weakness that we're seeing in the European markets. But again, for that one, I'll certainly want to turn it over to Justin, who's much closer than I am.

Justin, do you have kind of anything to add? Yeah, sure. I mean, I think what I'd say is to echo kind of what Scott said about the Americas. We're not, right now, we're not seeing any weakness into Q3. We're seeing a a strong Q3. As Brian said, it looks worse than Q2 because of the seasonality of the business, but in the comparison to 2019, it would be as strong or stronger. So, no, currently we're not seeing anything within the Q3, and I think it's just because you're comparing it to Q2, which is a stronger quarter.

Jim, did I really add to your question?

Yeah, it does. I was just looking back at the year-ago quarter, and it seemed like it had some improvement. that perhaps it was in line with what you're just saying, that that's when the pickup began to occur, and we're just unduly expecting more, I guess. The last one I'd say is in the airport business, do you think the future of that sector could be, I know it's a smaller business relatively recently, speaking vis-a-vis the rest of your business, but is the rate of profitability potentially bigger in the future so that it could have a greater impact in the future? And are there any other airports that I'm not aware of that are coming up for bid over in the next year? And finally, with the traffic issues we've had in airports lately, We have a time spent listening measure in audio. Is there a time spent in airports measure that might improve the value of those displays at the moment just because of how people are spending more time trying to get through the airport?

Sure. So in terms of... contract renewals. We have a pretty steady set of contract renewals at any given time. Certainly nothing material is in the cards, but that's not something that we do a lot of disclosing on for reasons I'm sure you can imagine relating to trying to get extensions if you're the incumbent or um you know working on ways to acquire the airport if you're not so um really nothing in the in the portfolio other than just to affirm that you know airport rfps are happening again um we are rotating the portfolio over time and there'll be there'll be ins and outs um and any of the larger ones will certainly um announce as they as they uh they come up whether they're wins or or losses um You know, with regard to monetization, so there's kind of two parts to your question. Part one is can the media owners who target airports evolve contracting in ways that make them inherently more profitable? And I would say that there is a constant innovation in terms of contract terms and in terms of contract structure that has an eye on that. But I also think, you know, you're dealing with large municipal government organizations. There's going to be a limit to – I don't foresee a time when airports' profitability is going to be as good as what we have, you know, in the roadside business. But I think, you know, can we improve it over time? You know, somewhat, yeah, but are we going to be able to, like, you know, double it or something like that, you know, it's not going to be that kind of improvement. It's going to be more on the increment. On the revenue side, which is sort of the second part of your question, which is around measurement, there is a lot of innovation going on within that space, both in terms of the actual planning type metrics as well as, you know, attribution techniques and things that you can do around attribution. And that's part of our revenue growth strategy in the medium term. It is still, you know, relative to what we're able to do roadside, airports is earlier in its development, but it is moving down the same curve, and I would expect that our, you know, measurement capabilities there will expand nicely, and that will, you know, provide some support both on pricing as well as just getting people into the category. So hopefully that, that answers your question.

No, very helpful. And thank you very much. Thanks, Jim.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Aaron Watson, Deutsche Bank. Aaron, please go ahead.

Hi everyone. Thanks for having me on. Covered a lot of grounds today. So, uh, I just had two quick to wrap up here. I guess first I'm political and I apologize if I missed this. In the US we've heard from your media peers that spending is quite robust. I'm just curious how you're stacking up versus maybe your last midterm election and if digital has helped boost at all, just given that being probably a more palatable outlet for some of the politicians.

Sure. Well, um, I, I know, uh, the competitor who's an enthusiast on, on political, um, although I think he also always emphasizes that small part of his book, he just loves to, he loves to talk about it because those local elections in small towns are a great source of, uh, of out of home, uh, activity. We, we skew the larger towns. And so, um, we kind of need the, you know, DCCC, the RCCC, the RNC, the DNC. We need those guys to make the leap, and it's not for lack of trying. And there is, there has been some innovation around some of the big conferences, both the D's and the R's have used some digital out of home, and we're educating them constantly on the abilities of it. But I'm not going to call that we're going to have a big political year until we actually have a big political year, and that hasn't happened. So I assure you we work on it, but it is not something that we think is going to be a big driver this year. You're right, though, that if and when we crack the code on it, it'll be digital that is the vehicle, I'm sure.

Okay, that's fair. And then secondly... On M&A, we've heard your U.S. peers talk about a fairly active pipeline for the year. What's the latest you're seeing, and does your current liquidity and the outlook you laid out for us allow you to participate?

Well, we have been an active participant. Scott, I may have jumped in ahead of you. I think we get about $20 million, but I'll let you talk about your view on M&A activities.

Yeah, there's certainly opportunities out there, and To your point, we're not as active in it at an aggregate level as our competitors, and that is driven by constraints that we have. That's part of the answer to one of the earlier questions about why would we want to focus. One of the benefits of focus would be the ability to focus more energy on USM&A. But it's a good environment. There are definitely assets for sale. We definitely have a pipeline, but we're also definitely very aware of our constraints. I don't know, Brian, what other things you would say? I think that's right.

It's the balance of going out there and, you know, executing upon the acquisitions in the U.S. that make sense, but also balancing that with our liquidity position.

Okay, great. Appreciate the time, as always. Thanks, Aaron.

Thank you. Our final question comes from Courtney Bauman from Barclays. Courtney, please go ahead.

Hey, Brian, Eileen, Scott, thanks so much for the question and congratulations on the results. One really quick one for me, you know, moving forward regardless of a potential sale of the European assets you mentioned, you know, in terms of capital deployment, you guys have done a really good job in digitizing the footprint, obviously, you know, shifting to a generally higher margin profile. How should we be thinking about the balance between board digitization and leverage reduction in the absence of a sale? I guess, you know, relatedly, how are you guys thinking about longer-term leverage and a potential sweet spot for the company that we should be thinking about in the longer term?

So let me take a run at this, and then Brian can add in if I miss things or don't get the right tie to the leverage. I think we've been very consistent on, particularly in the United States, on roadside digital conversion. The primary gating factor there is legislative and just all the things you have to do to get permission to be able to make those conversions. And that we're going to continue to proceed on that as fast as we can. And we're constantly working on things that let us find chunkier cities and situations where we're able to do lots of conversions, but that gets harder as the years go by because you kind of end up against the municipalities that have more structural resistance to digital conversion. So we really, that is a core part of our growth strategy and that's something that, you know, we haven't had really any concrete talk, but the economics of those conversions are such that You don't want to constrain that type of activity. You know, I think there are a bunch of digital vectors that we've got beyond just the conversion. And we were talking about some of this a minute ago in terms of measurement helping to make the assets more valuable because you can demonstrate the impact of them creating purchasing environment. Those are sort of things that come into play. I'm sorry, did you have something to add?

Oh, no, nothing at all. That makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I think the only thing I would add is, you know, the path to be leveraging, which is key for us, is a function and is likely a function of both increasing EBITDA and focus on those high returning investments, whether they be digital conversion or tucking in an A that we're doing, and reducing debt. And we just have to balance every time we have a decision to make, whether it's in You know, a capital investment, M&A activity, the opportunity to reduce debt, you know, we have to look at all that. And I actually don't think that our goal with the levers is going to change because of what's going on in Europe. I mean, we certainly have to factor in what's happening, but at the end of the day, we recognize that leverage needs to be reduced, and it's likely that we'll work on both sides of the fraction to be successful in getting there.

Did you have anything else, Courtney? That is now the end of the Q&A session, so I'll now hand you back over to Scott for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks, everyone, for listening in. You know, I just would emphasize we feel really good about the business and where it is. We think we've got strong growth prospects, and we're really looking forward to seeing folks at our investor day on September 8th. So thank you all and have a great rest of the week.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.