Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Greg Lundberg. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our 2021 Q1 earnings call. On the call today are Jeremy Male, Chairman and Chief Officer and Matthew Siegel, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After a discussion of our financial results, we'll open up the lines for a question and answer session. Our comments today, as usual, will refer to the earnings release and a slide presentation that you can find in the Investor Relations section Our website, outfrontmedia.com.
After today's call is concluded, an audio archive will be available there as well. This conference call may include forward looking statements. Relative factors that could cause actual results to differ materially These forward looking statements are listed in our earnings materials, in our SEC filings, including our 2020 Form 10 ks and our 10 Q, which should be filed tomorrow. We will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures on this call, and any references to OIBDA made today will be on an adjusted basis and reconciliations of OIBDA and other non GAAP financial measures are in the appendix of the slide presentation, And I will now turn the call over to Jeremy, who is sitting right next to me.
Thanks, Greg, and thank you all for joining us today. Yes, I'm pleased to tell you that I'm sitting here on our Manhattan office with both Matt and Greg, All vaccinated and happy to be putting 2020 and the worst of the pandemic firmly into the rear view. Talking about rear views, before I review the Q1, I'd like to break the tradition today and look forward instead. So let's begin with our Q2 outlook. Right now, our expectation for the Q2 It's for a return to significant growth with total revenues up in the mid to high 40% range.
While this is obviously our 2020 pandemic lows, it is a big step forwards towards our record 2019 levels, And we feel increasingly positive about the rest of the year. With that said, Now let's get back to our review of the Q1, which is summarized on Slide 3. As we discussed with you in February, Our outlook for the Q1 wasn't much different from the Q4 because simply the country hadn't made substantive progress in terms of vaccinations and reopenings. Total revenues were down 30%, at the low end of our guidance range adjusted for last year's sale of our sports marketing business. It's worth remembering that we had a pretty strong Q1 last year when billboard revenues grew by 8%.
While we were able to enjoy some variable expense reduction, the revenue decrease led to a steep decline in both OIBDA and AFFO. Let's turn to Slide 4, which is a more detailed view of our U. S. Media revenues. Billboard revenues were down 17%, while transit revenues were down 67%.
Ridership across the country has remained stubbornly low, With rail ridership at around 25% of pre pandemic levels, but we are now seeing some green shoots. Weekly ridership on the New York City subway, for example, was up around 40% at the end of April compared to the 4th quarter average. Obviously, not where it needs to be, but it's nice to see that it's starting to move in the right direction. Turning to Slide 5, you can see that national advertising was down more than local. Part of this is due to the fact that national The store has historically been more weighted towards transit and part of it is due to particular advertising categories, Most obviously, TV, entertainment, movies, travel, and I'll discuss this in more detail later in the call.
The absence of these categories also impacted billboard yields. As you can see on Slide 6, Total yields were down 15%, essentially in line with our revenues. Our digital business on Slide 7 faced some very tough comps. Last year, Total digital revenues were up 39% in Q1, with transit up 67% and contributing nearly half the dollar growth. Despite this quarter's decline, it's good to see that digital is holding steady on this proportion of our total revenues, And we expect this to be expanding further as our business rebounds.
To complete our revenue picture for the quarter, Slide 8 shows our other business, which principally comprises our business in Canada, where revenues declined 27%. This reflects the same market issues we saw in the U. S. And some more significant lockdowns than we've had here. Let me now hand over to Matt to review our Q1 in more detail.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our call today. Please turn to Slide 9. We will begin with our expenses. Overall, our total expenses were down $62,000,000 year over year. This is less than the run rate during most of 2020, Due mainly to the fact that as we mentioned on the February call, we are paying the minimum annual guarantee on the New York MTA contract We set a revenue share on the lower revenues.
However, we continue to be in revenue share in our other key transit systems. We also saw some continued benefit in lower billboard lease costs. Posting and maintenance expenses were down $20,000,000 With half of that reduction coming from the sale of sports marketing last year. SG and A fell at about The same amount as last quarter, reflecting some of the steps we took last year and from a lower allowance for doubtful accounts as our collections were better than we expected. The OIBDA bridge is on Slide 10.
As you know, the Q1 is always our lightest given the relatively high fixed cost nature of the business. We ended up at $11,000,000 slightly ahead of where we thought and bringing us through the entire pandemic in positive territory. Slide 11 gives you color on the Orbita composition. Remember that operating leverage works both ways. And as we start growing revenues from here, we expect to see significant forward bit of growth rates throughout the year.
Let's now turn to capital expenditures on Slide 12. The lower amount this quarter reflects timing issues As it's our intention to bring our total growth spending back to pre pandemic levels and add 150 to 200 digital billboards to our portfolio. Our guidance for the year is unchanged at $85,000,000 of total CapEx. Slide 13 shows the bridge in AFFO. The biggest driver remains OIBDA since changes in the other categories were very minor.
This quarter was negative as anticipated, And right now, we feel that it's likely we will be ahead of our previously indicated guidance range of 25% to 30% annual growth for 2021. As you know, the billboard business continues to gain momentum, and we look forward to updating our guidance as the year progresses. Turning to Slide 14 for an MTA update. You can see that it was a light deployment quarter. We remain in constructive conversations with the MTA regarding the scope and tenor of the contract, and we'll be in a position to update you more fully in the near future.
In In the meantime, we reduced our annual 2021 equipment deployment estimates to approximately $100,000,000 down Down from $125,000,000 to $160,000,000 previously. Now let's turn to our balance sheet on Slide 15. Our liquidity remains strong at $1,100,000,000 Our revolver remains undrawn and cash is down slightly from year end Due to some proactive actions we took during the quarter, we paid off $80,000,000 outstanding under our repurchase facility. We refinanced our 5.58 percent senior notes with the same amount of 4.25 percent notes, which incurred some closing costs, And we spent $16,000,000 on tuck in digital billboard acquisitions in various markets, including Philadelphia, Phoenix and Atlanta. As we look forward, our capital decisions remain focused on digital conversions, continuing to invest in technology that helps grow revenues And further tuck in acquisitions.
Importantly, as we move forward in 2021, our Board will evaluate our outlook with regards to the reinstatement of In closing, we are pleased to be entering back into growth mode, and we think the economic backdrop supported by a strong balance sheet Position us for an exciting year end I'm sorry, exciting year ahead. Let me turn the call back over to Jeremy.
Thank you, Matt. And now let's turn again in a bit more detail to our outlook on Slide 16. As I mentioned earlier, the 2nd quarter outlook is dramatically improved with total revenue expected to be up in the mid to high 40% range adjusted for the sale of sports marketing last year. This growth will be led by Billboard, which remains robust, and we believe that we're Absolutely on track to be surpassing 2019 levels towards the end of this year. Transit ridership is still lagging and while relatively small in dollar terms, we do expect a 30% increase in revenues year over year in Q1.
As the green shoots I mentioned earlier develop, it's likely that improvements in our transit recovery We'll be more back end loaded this year and continue into 2022. The improvements in our business and our Strong Q2 growth guidance is being achieved despite the fact that there are still many categories that simply aren't back in the market. If you turn to Slide 17, you can see a graphic representation by category of the year over year revenue In each of the last 3 years' 1st quarters, what's really noticeable are the very significant swings in some of our important large If we look at the categories most impacted by the pandemic, Things like TV, entertainment, movies, travel, casinos, they represented nearly half of our revenue decline during the Q1. The good news is that the reverse is true. The post pandemic recovery will bring back all of these onto our books.
And in fact, we're already seeing it in the movie category with big films like Fast and Furious, Space Jam and the new James Bond later this year. Just yesterday, in line with the majority of states, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced the lifting of most pandemic restrictions on May 19. Here in the city, 24 hour subway service is resuming on May 17. So as we leave this call today, Know that we are firmly back into a positive growth environment. As more and more of us are fully vaccinated, case rates fall And as we move towards the summer months, then back to school and indeed back to the office, we believe that we will continue to see more positive momentum In all parts of our business right across the country, Outfront is extremely well positioned To meet the world's desire to dine out, shop in stores, attend events and go on vacation.
In a market like this, Out of home will thrive to the benefit of our customers, our people and our stakeholders. So with that, operator, let's now open the lines for questions.
Thank you. First question comes from Alexia Quadrani with JPMorgan.
Hi. This is Anna on for Alexia. Thank you so much for the question. First, I wanted to ask about how Q2 is Trending, has visibility improved at least on the billboard side? You probably know that Lamar noted this morning that they That improvement in New York City as early as May, I'm just wondering if you're seeing the same kind of improvement on the billboard side.
Thanks.
Yes. Thanks, Anna. Maybe just before we address that question, I think when I was talking about our transit revenue increase in Q2, I think I said Q1. So that 30% increase was for Q2 just for clarity. So let's sort of take that question, Anna.
Look, in general, obviously, we're feeling a lot better about Life Full Stop and our billboard business in particular. When we look into the detail of our pacings for Q2, and maybe it's helpful just to get a little bit of clarity, We have about 50 billboard markets, and of those, Over half of them actually are now pacing ahead of 2019, which is really, really good to see. Now to be fair, It tends to be our smaller markets. Our smaller markets have, over the entire period, outperformed some of our largest cities. So look, they're still We're not at those levels yet in New York or LA or San Francisco, but it's a really good sign.
And I can only repeat our sort of general positive feeling about moving back Over our 'nineteen levels as we get to in total as we get towards the back end.
Great. Thank you. And just one follow-up, if I may. In reference to the categories you've listed on Slide 17, Which categories are driving your guidance? And what factors can keep growth going through the year?
Well, When we look at Q2, as we sit here today, obviously, most of the growth in dollar Terms are being driven by billboards. And when we look at categories that are doing great, liquor and beer, financial, Legal, professional services and retail, all right up there. I guess the categories are still weak. The ones that I spoke about on the call, TV, movies, we still don't have Broadway And Caitlin, Internet at the moment is still weak and airlines and travel. So all of these, we believe, have the potential absolutely To snap back as the year progresses.
So I think that as they come back, that will just be hopefully a further tailwind for us.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.
Thanks. Good afternoon. Two questions, and I apologize, Matt, if you gave this in your comments and I might have missed it. But You talked about the full year likely coming in ahead of your initial AFFO guidance. Could you just comment on that if that's a Revenue comment or CapEx comment or some combination and sort of you guys didn't update it, but I guess it Sounds like you see upside, anything you could add?
And then on the NTA, you talked about reducing your spending. Is there any more color on sort of why is that a function of just Ability to build this year or anything else you or Jeremy would like to add on the NCA relationship, I'm sure people would love to hear.
Thank you.
Sure, Ben. I'll take those and Jeremy can chime in. On the SFO guidance, obviously, we just feel better about our Well, business overall than we did a couple of months ago. It's primarily from billboard revenue, as Jeremy pointed out. It's Progressing nicely.
Transit is growing, but still the ridership isn't fair. Really no material change in CapEx, your interest. So it's revenue bringing OIBDA along with it, and we'll have hopefully more to say As the year progresses, on the MTA, we're in constructive, as I mentioned, but Long duration conversations with the MTA. We think we're making progress together. If you recall, Back when we first signed up the contract, it's a long process.
It's a complicated contract. The MTA is a complicated place. There's a lot of approvals. We have a lot of things going on. So we're hopeful we have some news soon, but our goal is really A modified investment plan and an extended duration of the contract.
And there's A lot of moving parts, but we think we'll get something that we can announce shortly. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer.
Hi, great. Thank you very much. Did you guys say that you're going to do up to 200 billboards of digital This year, I think that's what you said. And so is that a reflection of like additional opportunities you're Are you seeing or is this just like pent up demand where you're trying to catch up to force that you didn't deploy during COVID that you wanted to?
Thanks, Ian. I'll take that. Before the pandemic, we were At or around that $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 mark. So yes, we switched the tap off for A few months right at the start of the pandemic, switched it back on really from Q3 last year. But it's more about really getting back to our previous level of that sort of $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 rather than Any kind of massive pipeline spillover from last year?
Okay, good. And then just on the transit side, how should we conceptually think about this? The recovery is happening And that's great. The city is reopening and that's great. But to get back to full recovery, I think they're talking about 2024.
But what do you actually need in terms of ridership to maybe capture the same revenues that you had in 2019? I know it's not 100%, because I know that impressions are more valuable if there's less people on the subway and less people in the stations. But I kind of wanted to think of that or I asked you how you guys think about that as the subway business starts recovering and the MTA business starts recovering?
Sure. I mean, it largely depends what models you're looking at as to exactly when we get back to 2019 levels. But what I can absolutely say is that as audiences rise, so will advertising dollars. We're starting to see audiences kick up Certainly, here in New York, we believe that will follow soon in D. C, Boston And San Francisco, which are other key franchises where we have in car or subway advertising.
That's going to be a natural consequence of people getting out and about eating out Our entertainment and certainly back to the office. Look, we don't think if we think we're here in the city, so Let's talk about New York. We really don't think that we need that sort of 5000000 to 6000000 daily advertisers back to get To 100 percent of 2019 revenues, I guess the first thing is that we are In the process still of dramatically improving the advertising environment with our investments in digital, which We think we'll drive revenues, and we really believe that less crowded systems may actually be a better brand for Brand environment, sorry, for brand engagement. So look, it's all going to be directionally positive. It's going It's going to take longer than billboards, but it's going to be a good tailwind for us over the Balance of this year and into 2022.
Thanks, Ian. Thank you. Our next question comes from Stefan Bisson, who is with the Wolfe Research.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering, could you talk about how the transit Buy has changed? How much lead time is necessary now that there's more digital in the system? Can it come back more quickly as the environment recovers?
I think the short answer to that, Stefan, thanks, is that an absolutely yes. And It's actually not just about our transit business. We talked about digital now being 22% of our revenues, and that's only going to increase. And digital is becoming bigger right across our portfolio. And I think the fact that through automation and indeed the programmatic pipes, we can certainly take money later.
We were always seen as being a little bit inflexible as a medium. We were difficult to buy. You have to book miles ahead. That really isn't the case now. You can actually lay down significant buys with us at very short notice, Which we think is great for us and indeed the industry as a whole.
That's interesting. And then I think on
the last call you noted that the M and A market We're a
little bit tied up with pretty big valuation gap.
Do you have any update on
the market given your significant liquidity?
We talked about some 2 or 3 small acquisitions that we executed in the Q1, And we've certainly got some more tuck ins in the pipeline. I think as we go through, Yes. We did talk about there being a bit of a mismatch of value expectation From sellers to potential buyers, I think that's seeming to iron out a bit. And we But we would like to see some maybe some more tuck in as we go through the balance of this year.
Thanks so much for taking the question.
Thanks, Stefan.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Goss with Barrington Research.
Thanks. I've got a couple of questions. One is, am I getting a sense that You're thinking that the early expectations during the onset of the pandemic that there would be a lot less office Space usage and more remote work is was sort of Something that came up at the time that now maybe there would be a rethinking that we'd get back to anything close to normal? Or do Do you still think there would be a disparity in the future relative to the past and serve it in a related way? If that were the case, Would that be bad for your urban properties, but maybe good for the billboards in the suburbs and outside the city?
Thanks, Jim. So let's take that. I think When we were sitting in the middle of the pandemic, it was really hard to see how things were going to play out. I think from where we're all sat now that Yes. We're all here in the office and we've got a large number of our offices right the way across the country, kind of Almost back to in inverted commas, back to normal.
In some of the big cities, there's been some reluctance, but We really believe that as people get vaccinated, people will feel increasingly confident. In fact, they will have a desire to get out of their homes. And I think that we will benefit from that as indeed will all other industry types. And it's interesting to see Comments from Jamie Dimon just earlier today about what he thinks about working from home, etcetera. So look, It may take a little while in certain markets and there may be some disparity across the country.
But what we do have is We have assets in city centers. We have assets in the burbs. We can find our audience through our assets Wherever they are. So we feel, as we hopefully indicated on this call, we're very increasingly confident About the balance of this year, and we continue to believe that out of home in general as an industry is going to be a Great way to impact audiences in the future.
Okay. And On the slide where you were looking at categories, entertainment was probably the biggest drop off and you've said movies are coming back a little. Over the course of this process, film release windows have tightened quite a bit where it might be 2 or 3 weeks or maybe a little bit longer, Except for the biggest blockbusters, I'm wondering if that affects your business in terms of Maybe having a bigger push in a shorter period of time and that there'd be a lot more turnover and that might well tie into the digital business or if it might be impacted in some other way. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Yes. I think it's a good question, Jim. I think, yes, we will see some of those buys shorten just in absolute terms. And also, I think They will desire increasing flexibility, which is something that absolutely our digital proposition can deliver. It's interesting right now because some of these categories do start coming back to put it like that.
We do expect to see some tension on some of our billboard assets in terms of inventory availability as we go to the balance of this year. So digital, where you have that incremental capacity, can be a A way that we might be able to satisfy that incremental demand.
Okay. And that could probably pressure prices and Give you an opportunity that way too ahead with management.
Yes. Well, as you can imagine, we're certainly trying to manage our Supply and demand pretty carefully across our business at the moment.
Okay. My last question, I was wondering about the bid process For the new transit contracts, there were several that you had talked about before all of this began. And I'm wondering, though, where any of those stand and if there are Sounds that you're very focused on trying to win.
So as we look at Certainly, transit right now in terms of major bids, there really aren't that many that we Expect to happen within calendar year 2021. Washington Was in play. That actually got pushed out for a year or 2. Most of the other transit franchises that we You have some longevity within the contract. And right now, there's no other major transit franchises up for bid that we expect to be To happen, as I say, within this calendar
year. All
right. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. So I'll turn it back to our speakers for closing comments.
So Thanks, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. And we look forward to Speaking to you and or seeing you at investor events within the coming weeks. Thank you again.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now