Shares of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings (NYSE: CCO) jumped 15% on Wednesday after the out-of-home advertising company announced solid third-quarter results and revised its full-year outlook. Clear Channel also made significant progress in divesting non-core assets and deleveraging its balance sheet.
Clear Channel's headline numbers didn't look great at first glance; third-quarter 2023 revenue grew 4.7% year over year (or 2.7% excluding currency exchange), to $526.8 million, translating to a net loss from continuing operations of $51.1 million (or roughly $0.11 per diluted share). Analysts, on average, were looking for a narrower loss of approximately $0.08 per share, but with a revenue decline of 0.9%.
On Clear Channel's continued divestments
Clear Channel has been busy deleveraging its balance sheet by divesting non-core assets over the past year -- starting specifically with what it considered its entire "Europe-South segment," which now meets the criteria to be reported as discontinued operations. The company sold its business in Switzerland for cash proceeds of $89.4 million in March, then followed in May with two deals to sell its businesses in Italy and Spain for a total of just over $69 million. Then Clear Channel completed the sale of its France business for 42 million euros just last month (with the buyer, Equinox, also assuming a 28.125 million euro state-guaranteed loan held by Clear Channel France).
Clear Channel says the net proceeds from each of these sales will be used to improve its liquidity and to bolster its "financial flexibility [...] as permitted under [its] debt agreements." The company ended last quarter with a net debt balance of just over $5.3 billion, the earliest of which will come due in the form of a $1.26 billion term loan facility in 2026.
Clear Channel CEO Scott Wells added that the company has commenced the process of selling its Europe-North segment, noting that potential buyers are currently reviewing preliminary information. Clear Channel has further initiated a strategic review for the potential sale of its businesses in Latin America.
What's next for Clear Channel investors?
"We believe these actions provide us the roadmap to achieve meaningfully lower leverage multiples over the next few years," Wells elaborated, "which in turn should enable us to generate stronger free cash flow to support further deleveraging and unlock shareholder value."
In the meantime, Clear Channel now expects full-year 2023 revenue (excluding discontinued operations) of $2.091 billion to $2.118 billion. Within that total, Clear Channel anticipates America region revenue ranging from $1.095 billion to $1.107 billion (narrowed from $1.095 billion to $1.115 billion previously), airports revenue of $300 million to $305 million (increased from $285 million to $295 million before), and Europe-North segment revenue of $604 million to $614 million (up from $590 million to $610 million previously).
Clear Channel also revised its full-year outlook for adjusted EBITDA in the range of $520 million to $542 million (compared to $522 million to $552 million previously), adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) of $67 million to $80 million (narrowed from $62 million to $82 million before), and capital expenditures of $143 million to $161 million (lowered from $163 million to $183 million).
All told, this was a moderately better-than-expected quarter punctuated by continued progress in Clear Channel's divestment activities and an extended pledge to further improve its balance sheet. I'm not personally interested in buying shares of a highly leveraged business reliant on selling off assets to unlock shareholder value. But with shares of Clear Channel down more than 30% since the beginning of October leading into this report, it was no surprise to see the stock bouncing on Wednesday.
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