Lamar Advertising Company

Lamar Advertising Company owns and operates outdoor advertising displays, including traditional and digital billboards, highway logo signs and transit and airport advertising. Local businesses and national advertisers pay to reach audiences through those locations. Lamar operates as a real estate investment trust, trades on Nasdaq under LAMR and reports on a December 31 year-end.

Quarterly results

Acquisition-adjusted revenue grew 6.2% and EBITDA 8.2%. The earlier year's sales are rebased to reflect acquired and disposed businesses for the comparable ownership periods. The previous quarter's comparable growth was 6.1% and 7.3%, respectively. Management attributes demand to national advertisers, digital displays and political spending.

Net income included a $16.9 million asset-disposal gain, versus $2.2 million a year earlier. FFO removes real estate sale gains and adds back real estate depreciation, with further affiliate and ownership adjustments. AFFO additionally removes non-real-estate depreciation, stock compensation and specified other items, while deducting maintenance capital spending.

Quarterly non-real-estate depreciation and amortization added back to AFFO rose to $21.5 million from $9.4 million, while the stock-compensation addback rose to $13.1 million from $7.6 million. The report attributes higher actual depreciation and amortization mainly to disposal of capitalized software implementation costs, along with acquisitions and capital spending.

AFFO's per-share calculation includes outside units in the operating partnership. Its average diluted share-and-unit denominator was 103.4 million, compared with 101.7 million common shares used for GAAP EPS.

Annual outlook and original assumptions

The annual non-real-estate depreciation and amortization addback rose to $36 million from $15 million. Expected stock compensation is now $50 million to $57 million, versus $45 million to $55 million. Maintenance spending remains $65 million in the AFFO reconciliation. At the midpoints, larger addbacks offset a $12.35 million lower FFO forecast and leave AFFO $10.7 million higher.

Cash, debt and shareholder distributions

First-nine-month operating cash flow reached $683.9 million, compared with $592.9 million. Company-defined free cash flow was $591.2 million versus $509.4 million. That measure normalizes working capital and other items and deducts total capital spending; it differs from both operating cash flow and AFFO. Common dividends paid totaled $493.3 million.

The common dividend of $1.65 was paid September 30. Management expects full-year common dividends of at least $6.50 per share, subject to board approval. The company had $250 million remaining under its existing share-buyback program and had made no purchases under that program during the first nine months.

September cash was $54.1 million. Debt had a $3.501 billion carrying value, compared with $3.419 billion at December 31. The $750 million revolving facility had $75 million drawn, with $667 million available after letters of credit. The separate $250 million receivables facility was fully drawn.

The receivables facility was extended on October 1 to mature in October 2029, a change already disclosed in October. The revolving facility matures in July 2028, with an earlier maturity test tied to liquidity ahead of the February 2028 notes. Operating lease liabilities were $1.458 billion, finance-lease liabilities $12.3 million and asset-retirement obligations $631.4 million.

Completed acquisitions and portfolio changes

During the first nine months, Lamar completed 44 outdoor-asset acquisitions and multiple land and easement purchases for $187.2 million of cash. Separately, the August 12 AdSource Outdoor acquisition used 209,078 operating-partnership units valued at $32.2 million. Those units are generally redeemable after a year, with Lamar able to settle in cash or common shares.

Lamar sold its 20% stake in Vistar in February 2025. The $8 million gain recorded in 2026 relates to that earlier transaction. Total cash received across the transaction was $123.9 million, with up to $6.3 million of conditional escrow consideration remaining. The business's next tests are advertising demand after the election period, progress against the revised forecast and cash generation after distributions and acquisitions.