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Hawk’s Nest

Unusual Call Buys in Out of Home Advertiser as Mobility Rebounds

by | Oct 21, 2021

Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) with an unusual trade on 10/21 that stood out as 3000 March $4 calls were bought to open at the $0.35 offer with shares at $2.85. CCO is also showing a promising chart breaking out of a flag this week on the daily with the weekly also flagging and a move above $2.95 measures to an upside target of at least $4.50. CCO is one of the world’s largest out-of-home advertising companies and the only global out-of-home advertising company with scaled presence in the United States and Europe. CCO has more than 500,000 advertising displays (including airport structures) spanning 31 countries which include print & digital billboards, street furniture displays, transit displays, airport displays and wallscapes. CCO separated from I-Heart (IHRT) in 2019. Out-of-home has the broadest reach among all forms of media, reaching more adults in the U.S. on a weekly basis than radio, TV and the Internet. CCO has a market cap of $1.38B and trades 12.7X FY22 EBITDA and 2.7X EV/Sales with revenues seen rising 15%/year the next two years and EBITDA seen climbing to $516M in 2022 from $120M in 2020. CCO’s balance sheet is the concern, a name that operated at 9X Debt/EBITDA pre-pandemic and seen around 15X in 2021 and 10X in 2022. Magna, a top industry forecaster, recently updates our of home growth expected at 11% next year. CCO’s Airports business is around 20% of the portfolio and should see a nice boost from lifting of travel restrictions.