CLEAR CHANNEL OUTDOOR HOLDINGS, INC. REPORTS RESULTS FOR THE THIRD QUARTER OF

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCO) (the “Company”) today reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

“We delivered third quarter consolidated revenue of $517 million, up 2.7%, excluding movements in foreign exchange rates, within our guidance after excluding our Europe-South segment, which is now reflected as discontinued operations in our financial statements,” said Scott Wells, Chief Executive Officer of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. “Business trends are improving domestically, and we believe we’ll see better performance in the U.S. in the fourth quarter.

“Our Board of Directors and management team are focused on deleveraging over the near-to-medium term by continuing to execute on our operating plan to organically grow Adjusted EBITDA and improve free cash flow, including expanding categories of advertisers in out-of-home, optimizing our deployment of capital, and reducing corporate expenses, while methodically working to monetize our European assets and streamline our focus on our higher-margin markets.

“With the recently completed sale of our business in France, we have made significant progress on improving our portfolio this year, selling or agreeing to sell all of the businesses in our Europe-South segment. In addition, we have commenced a process to sell our Europe-North segment, and potential buyers are reviewing preliminary information. We have also initiated a strategic review of our businesses in Latin America.

“We believe these actions provide us the roadmap to achieve meaningfully lower leverage multiples over the next few years, which in turn should enable us to generate stronger free cash flow to support further deleveraging and unlock shareholder value.”

Financial Highlights:

Financial highlights for the third quarter of 2023 as compared to the same period of 2022, including financial highlights excluding movements in foreign exchange rates (“FX”)¹:

Dispositions and Discontinued Operations:

Dispositions:

Since December 2022, we have sold, or have entered into agreements to sell, our businesses in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France, comprising our entire Europe-South segment. 

• On March 31, 2023, we sold our business in Switzerland to Goldbach Group AG for cash proceeds, net of customary closing adjustments and cash sold, of $89.4 million.
• On May 31, 2023, we sold our business in Italy to a subsidiary of JCDecaux for cash proceeds, net of customary closing adjustments and cash sold, of $5.1 million.
• In May 2023, we entered into an agreement to sell our business in Spain to a subsidiary of JCDecaux for cash consideration of approximately $64.3 million. This transaction is expected to close in 2024, upon satisfaction of regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.
• In July 2023, we entered into exclusive discussions with Equinox Industries (“Equinox”) related to our business in France, and in October 2023, we entered into a share purchase agreement with Equinox to sell our business in France. The sale was subsequently completed on October 31, 2023, and in accordance with that share purchase agreement, we delivered our business in France to Equinox with approximately €42 million of cash, subject to adjustment for related customary items, tax and other costs, to support ongoing operations of the business, and Equinox assumed the €28.125 million state-guaranteed loan held by Clear Channel France.

We intend to use net proceeds from these sales, after payment of transaction-related fees and…