Lamar Advertising (LAMR) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: AFFO Guidance Raised

Key Takeaways

• Acquisition-adjusted revenue rose 6.2% year over year in Q3 2026, while acquisition-adjusted expenses increased 4.4%. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 49.1%.
• Adjusted EBITDA increased 9.3% to $306.9 million. AFFO rose 10.1% to $249.3 million, and diluted AFFO per share grew 9.5% to $2.41.
• Lamar raised full-year diluted AFFO guidance to $8.87-$8.97 per share. The midpoint implies 8% growth from 2025.
• October revenue exceeded $232 million and increased 14.1% on an acquisition-adjusted basis. Excluding political advertising, growth was nearly 7%.
• National revenue increased nearly 20%, political spending is expected to exceed $40 million for 2026, and programmatic revenue grew 42.4% in Q3.
• Management plans to recommend a Q4 regular dividend of $1.65 per share and a year-end special dividend of $0.30-$0.35, both subject to Board approval.

Core Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

National revenue increased nearly 20% and represented 25% of Lamar’s book, up from 23% in the prior quarter. Local and regional revenue grew 4.2%, extending its growth streak to 22 consecutive quarters. This segment accounted for approximately 75% of billboard revenue.

Political advertising remained a major driver. Management expects 2026 political spending to exceed $40 million, more than double the 2022 level and 40% above 2024. Nearly half of that spending is expected in Q4, with digital accounting for about half of political revenue.

Digital revenue represented 33.8% of the total book, compared with 32% a year earlier. Total digital platform revenue rose 12.2%, while same-store digital billing increased 6.5%. Lamar ended Q3 with 5,883 digital faces, up 153 from Q2 and 330 from the end of 2025.

Programmatic revenue increased 42.4% in Q3 and 42.9% year to date. National and programmatic revenue combined grew 19.7% and accounted for 24.6% of the book.

By business line, airport revenue increased 14.4% on an acquisition-adjusted basis, while transit revenue rose 8.1%. The Midwest and Central billboard regions led geographic growth at 9.2% and 8%, respectively.

Among advertising categories, telecom rose 30.5%, services 16%, retail 11%, financial 7.3%, and auto 7%. Health care and amusements were down to roughly flat at approximately 1%.

Lamar completed 54 billboard acquisitions year to date for more than $147 million in cash. It also spent more than $55 million purchasing easements beneath selected billboards. Management said the M&A pipeline remains active and expects additional transactions over the coming months.

Management Guidance

The cash interest assumption incorporates no change in short-term floating interest rates for the remainder of the year. Dividend recommendations remain subject to Board approval and are based on the company’s policy of distributing 100% of annual taxable income.

Risks and Areas to Watch

Management described private-market acquisition pricing as “frothy,” emphasizing the need for discipline while continuing to pursue accretive transactions.

Acquisition-adjusted operating expenses grew faster than the company’s original budget in Q3, although management attributed the increase to variable costs associated with stronger revenue.

Almost half of expected 2026 political advertising revenue is scheduled for Q4, making the timing and realization of that spending important to full-year performance.

The AFFO outlook assumes unchanged short-term floating interest rates for the rest of 2026. The proposed Q4 regular dividend and special dividend also require Board approval.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Management said Lamar is gaining advertising share from other local media, particularly local network affiliates and radio broadcasters, rather than from competing billboard operators. October revenue excluding political advertising grew nearly 7%, which management cited as evidence of broader demand.

On M&A, management said activity is at one of the highest levels seen in Sean Reilly’s career. Although acquisition multiples are elevated, Lamar intends to remain disciplined and pursue transactions that are accretive.

Management also reported growing seller acceptance of the UPREIT structure because of its tax benefits. Lamar expects an upcoming transaction to use this structure and said its pipeline remains strong entering 2027.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

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 the general economic conditions, including inflationary pressures on its 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 third quarter 2026 earnings release and its most recent annual report on Form 10-K. Lamar refers you to those documents. Lamar's third quarter 2026 earnings release, which contains information required 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. You may begin.

Sean Reilly

Thank you, Katie, and good morning, all, and welcome to Lamar's Q3 2026 Earnings Call. We continue to be very pleased with how the year is playing out. For the third quarter, revenue growth ticked up 6.2% on an acquisition-adjusted basis, driven by strong demand from national customers, political spend and our digital platform. Revenue increased across billboards, airports, transits and logos, while expense growth moderated to 4.4% on an acquisition-adjusted basis. That all translated to an EBITDA margin for Q3 of 49.1%. October was even better with revenue topping $232 million, reflecting year-over-year growth of more than 14% on an acquisition-adjusted basis.

Notably, ex political, the growth was just shy of 7%. With those results in hand, today, we are raising our guidance for full year AFFO to a range of $8.87 to $8.97 per share representing at the midpoint, an increase of 8% over 2025. In September, the Board increased the quarterly distribution by $0.05 to $1.65 per share. We will recommend a similar dividend for Q4 and given our pacings, anticipate recommending that we pay a special dividend of at least $0.30 at the end of December.

Back to Q3. In addition to political, categories of strength included services, retail, auto and telecom while health care and amusements were flattish. Our national revenue increased nearly 20%, while local and regional revenues were up 4.2%. Both of those rates of growth accelerated from Q2. A word on political. It's clear to us that with every cycle, we are without a doubt gaining momentum and market share. As campaigns and PACs recognize the value of our audience. Nationally, political ad spend across all media is expected to grow about 30% this year over 2022 and modestly over 2024. We will do far better than that. Our political spend this year will top $40 million, more than double what we generated in 2022 and up 40% over 2024. Nearly half of that spend will show up in Q4. Our digital platform, the largest in the industry, is a key driver of our growth for the political category. It accounts for about half of the political spend. It's also obviously driving growth for our business as a whole.

Digital now generates more than 1/3 of our billboard revenue, and on a same-store basis, digital billing increased 6.5% in Q3 with programmatic up more than 40% in Q3. On the M&A front, we've been busy. Year-to-date, we have closed 54 billboard acquisitions for a cash purchase price of more than $147 million, and we've spent more than $55 million, enhancing the security of our real estate portfolio by purchasing easements beneath our better billboards. That project continues. In addition, we completed our second UPREIT transaction in August. We have a healthy pipeline of additional deals that we expect to finalize and announce over the next couple of months. Overall, we are ending 2026 with a lot of momentum. And with that, I will turn it over to Jay to walk you through some additional numbers. Jay?

Jay Johnson

Thanks, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had a strong third quarter and are extremely pleased with our results, which once again exceeded internal expectations and consensus estimates across revenue, adjusted EBITDA and AFFO. Our billboard regions all experienced solid top line growth, led by the Midwest and Central, which were up 9.2% and 8%, respectively. The airport business continued to outperform with acquisition-adjusted revenue increasing 14.4% in Q3 versus last year, followed by transit, which was up 8.1%.

In addition, the positive momentum continued in October with revenue increasing 14.1%, which is the best month on record for the company. October's performance brings acquisition-adjusted revenue to 6.4% through the first 10 months of the year. As of October 31, we had 99.7% of our budget on the books with November pacing looking promising as well. Acquisition-adjusted consolidated expenses increased 4.4% in the third quarter which grew more than our original budget, but was driven by variable expenses tied to solid revenue growth in the third quarter. We anticipate full year acquisition-adjusted operating expense growth in the 4.25% to 4.75% range. Adjusted EBITDA was $306.9 million compared to $280.8 million in 2025, an increase of 9.3% in the quarter and improving 8.2% on an acquisition-adjusted basis. This was an acceleration from Q3 (sic) [ Q2 ] when adjusted EBITDA grew a healthy 7.3%.

Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 49.1% over Q3 2025. Adjusted funds from operations totaled $249.3 million in the third quarter compared to $226.5 million last year, an increase of 10.1%. Diluted AFFO per share grew 9.5% to $2.41 per share versus $2.20 in the third quarter of 2025. Local and regional sales grew for the 22nd consecutive quarter and accounted for approximately 75% of billboard revenue in Q3. 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 25% of our book, up from 23% last quarter. On the capital expenditure front, total spend for the quarter was $45 million, including $16.7 million of maintenance CapEx. And for the full year, we anticipate total CapEx of approximately $186 million with maintenance CapEx comprising $65 million. Turning to our balance sheet. On October 1, we closed on the amendment and extension of our $250 million AR securitization. The facility now matures in October 2029 and the margin improved by 10 basis points. The new program also includes structural enhancements that increase flexibility and availability. The securitization was our nearest maturity, and we now have no debt maturity until our $600 million of senior notes due in February 2028, followed by the revolving credit facility in July of that same year. 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 3.9 years.

As defined under our credit facility, we ended the quarter with total leverage of 2.84x net debt-to-EBITDA, which remains amongst the lowest levels ever for the company. Our secured debt leverage was 0.64x at quarter end, and we are compliant with both our total debt incurrence and secured debt maintenance tests 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 LTM interest coverage through September 30 was 7.3x 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 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 remained strong. At quarter end, we had $721 million in total liquidity comprised of $54 million of cash on hand and $667 million available under our revolver.

The AR securitization was fully drawn with $250 million outstanding. Subsequent to quarter end, the company repaid $40 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 $8.87 to $8.97 an increase of $0.10 at the midpoint, and this follows last quarter's upward revision of $0.22 at the midpoint. Cash interest in our guidance totaled $156 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. Finally, our dividend. We paid a cash dividend of $1.60 per share in each of the first and second quarters, increasing to $1.65 per share in Q3 and management's recommendation for the fourth quarter will be a regular cash dividend of $1.65 per share as well. 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 $6.50 per share. However, given the company's performance exceeding expectations through September 30 and the outlook for Q4, we will request approval for a special dividend at year-end. The special dividend will likely be in the range of $0.30 to $0.35 per share, bringing the company's full year cash dividend to $6.80 to $6.85 per share. This is consistent with our practice in the 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 annually. Again, we are pleased with an extremely strong quarter as well as the momentum that has continued into the fourth quarter, and we look forward to executing on our strategy in the balance of the year. I'll now turn the call back over to Sean.

Sean Reilly

Thanks, Jay. I'll cover a few familiar data sets, and then we'll open it up for questions. Q3 digital revenue constituted 33.8% of our total book. That's up over the 32% it represented in Q3 of last year. Growth of the overall platform was up 12.2% in total and on a same-store basis was, as I mentioned, up 6.5%. We ended Q3 with 5,883 digital faces, an increase of 153 over Q2 and an increase of 330 year-to-date over Q4 of 2025. National/programmatic grew 19.7% in Q3 and constituted 24.6% of our book. Programmatic grew 42.4% in Q3. A reminder that for us, programmatic is 100% national. So less programmatic, national grew 16.1% in Q3.

By the way, year-to-date, programmatic is up a similar amount at 42.9%. As mentioned, on verticals, services were up 16%. Retail was up 11%. Auto was up 7%; financial, up 7.3% and telecom was up 30.5%. Also, as mentioned, health care and amusements were down to flattish, approximately 1%. With that, Katie, we will open it up for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Cameron McVeigh with Morgan Stanley.

Question-and-Answer Session

Cameron McVeigh

Great results in the quarter. I was curious if you could just talk high level how customer conversations have been trending in the quarter? What are they most primarily focused on. And do you see Lamar taking share from competitors or other traditional mediums. And then secondly, I just wanted to ask on M&A how the multiples are looking in the private market and maybe your expectations for acquisitions going forward? Curious how the UPREIT structure is being received from some potential sellers?

Sean Reilly

Sure. Let me hit the share shift first because that's a great question. I would say that the shift that's happening for us in our book is away from local network affiliate or radio broadcast. We're seeing a clear shift there. And one of the reasons I highlighted our ex political October was that I'm sure when you hear from the other medium, particularly local medium, ex political, they're going to shrink. And in October, which was an incredible political month for us, we actually grew ex political, almost 7%. And that's why I highlighted that number for you guys. So yes, I would say the share shift for us is we're not taking it at the expense of our fellow billboard operators. We're taking it at the expense of other local media.

The M&A pipeline looks really strong, Cameron. We're seeing as much activity as I've seen in my career. And it looks good. We're happy with what we've landed so far this year. We're happy with what we have under LOI that will close in the next few months, and we're seeing a lot of activity as we go into 2027. And one of the deals we hope to announce shortly will involve an UPREIT structure. So we are seeing greater acceptance out there as people really begin to understand the tax benefits of it and really the advantages of hitching their wagon to Lamar. So yes, more to come on that. What was the first part of your question?

Cameron McVeigh

Just on how M&A multiples are trending?

Sean Reilly

Yes. It's frothy out there. So we're going to have to be disciplined, but we're going to get our share at prices that are accretive as we always do. We've been around a long time, and our philosophy is to buy through the cycles. This happens to be one of those uptick cycles, and we're going to buy through it. And we're going to bring home deals that make sense. I think you asked about the tone of business and what advertisers are saying. It's very strong out there. We're happy with renewals going into '27. It's across the board on national in terms of the verticals that I ticked off. So we're feeling very good about where the world is headed for Lamar.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Sean Reilly for closing remarks.

Sean Reilly

Well, thank you all for listening, and thank you for your interest in Lamar. We look forward to visiting again in February.

Operator

Thank you. That brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.