LYV
#Thank you.
Live Nation has continued growing in the second quarter and for the first half, with revenue up 12% and AOI up 6% on a constant currency basis in second quarter.
The increase in revenue was led by our Concerts business, as we continue attracting more fans to more shows globally, which in turn, drives AOI growth in our advertising and ticketing businesses for the first half of the year.
With the majority of our tickets sold for the year, we are confident that we remain on track to deliver our 2015 plan, and all key leading indicators reinforce our expectations of continued top- and bottom-line growth, as we build global market share in our core concerts, advertising and ticketing businesses.
We have built the industry's most scalable and unparalleled live platforms, putting 450 million fans in 40 countries, to that magical two-hour event each year.
Concerts are the flywheel for our high-margin on-site advertising and ticketing businesses and this year, we expect to deliver record operating results, increasing revenue and profitability for each of these businesses.
Starting with the Concerts business, we have now sold approximately 75% of our projected tickets for the year and through July, we are pacing 7% ahead of last year's ticket sales.
This is our top leading indicator that we will increase concert attendance again this year.
We continue to be the world's leading promoter for about three-quarters of the top 25 tours, including U2, Imagine Dragons, Luke Bryant, Kid Rock and One Direction.
The strength of our global platform continues to deliver growth, as we have increased year-on-year attendance.
In the second quarter, over 1 million more fans attended our shows.
For the full year, we expect to grow our fan base by over 2 million fans, which on its own would be one of the top five promoters in the world.
Along with attendance growth, we have also grown per-fan on-site revenue this year about 18%, over $20 per fan, in our amphitheaters and festivals, as our new sales initiatives, particularly those focused on high-end fans, is paying off.
At the same time, we continue building our global platform for the future, most recently adding Marek Lieberberg to establish our Concerts business in Germany.
Germany is one of the top three concert markets in the world, and Marek has a history of promoting more than 700 shows with over 2 million fans each year.
Adding these shows to Live Nation can make us the top promoter in Germany.
And moving those 2 million tickets in the Ticketmaster platform in Germany will substantially increase our scale and market position and ticketing in Germany.
With this move, Live Nation now has a promoting presence in all major Western European markets.
Along with our presence now in nine Asian markets, we're the only promoter able to provide global and regional touring support at scale for artists.
Our artists managers continue to provide a strong pipeline of shows to our concerts and sponsorship division.
The sponsorship and advertising business, we have delivered strong growth through the first half, with both revenue and AOI up over 20% on a constant currency basis.
Our key leading indicator for advertising, contracted net revenue, is up 19% on a constant currency basis as of the end of the second quarter.
And we have sold 80% of our planned sponsorship for the year.
This now gives us confidence that our AOI growth rate in sponsorship and advertising for the year will be in the low-teens, an acceleration from recent years.
Our online advertising continues to build rapidly, growing revenue by 36% and AOI by almost 30% at constant currency for the first half.
We now have over 65 million monthly visitors to our sites and broader networks, making Live Nation one of the top three online music networks.
On the content side, we have entered the second year of streaming live shows with Yahoo! Live, with an increased focus on festivals this year, including EDC in Vegas, Wireless and Creamfields in the UK, and Voodoo in New Orleans.
Our Live Nation TV channel with Vice Media is launching this month in beta, and will provide live music fans and advertisers a channel dedicated to live music content, delivered by Vice's unique storytelling ability.
With the growth of our festival businesses, we are also continuing to build our base of major advertisers, increasing the number of companies that pay us over $1 million a year by 15%, now delivering a collective $200 million to Live Nation in 2015.
With all parts of our advertising business now performing and growing rapidly, we expect a record level of AOI growth in 2015 with continued strong runway.
Ticketmaster has continued building its global leadership as a ticketing marketplace this year, with 7% growth in traffic, leading to a 10% increase in primary and secondary GTV.
A key driver behind this growth in site visits and GTV has been our mobile first strategy, building our products for ease-of-use and viewing on mobile devices.
Mobile now consistently accounts for more than half of our traffic, both in North America and internationally and year-to-date, we have deployed 27 updates to our apps globally, as we are enhancing the fan experience.
As a result, we continue seeing growth in mobile ticket sales, up 21% through the first half and now accounting for 21% of all tickets sales.
Our app install base continues to build as well, now at 19 million, as more fans are seeing a benefit from improved search and ticket management functionality.
I am confident that 2015 will mark the true point of conversion of Ticketmaster to a technology company.
We have the right leadership and technology teams in place, building a marketplace and delivering products with great fan features, while also capturing cost savings for the business.
With all this, Ticketmaster has never been better positioned.
After growing the business in the first half of the year, we expect 2015 to be another year of growth and record results for the Company, and we are confident that we will deliver the final year of our three-year plan.
Based on the strong position of our leading indicators and concerts, and advertising and ticketing, operationally, we expect revenue and AOI growth in each of these businesses and overall for Live Nation this year.
And more fundamentally, we continue to see a wide berth for both organic and acquisition opportunities to further grow each of these businesses beyond 2015, directly building on the success we have achieved to date.
With that, I will turn it over to <UNK> <UNK>, our COO, for more details.
Thanks, <UNK>.
I will start with our results for the second quarter.
Revenue at constant currency is $1.9 billion, up 12% from the same period in 2014.
Reported revenue was $1.8 billion.
AOI is $151 million at constant currency, up 6% over last year.
Reported AOI is $142 million.
And free cash flow is $91 million, up 10% compared to last year.
At the end of June, our concerts-related deferred revenue, which is the monies we have received to date on tickets sold for events in the future at our owned or operated venues, was $1 billion, an increase of 20% over the balance in June of last year of $858 million.
Revenue growth for the quarter over last year was driven by higher concerts revenue from increased arena activity in North America and higher festival activity.
Reported AOI for the second quarter was in line with last year at $142 million.
Total FX impact to AOI for the second quarter was $9 million.
Our sponsorship and advertising segment AOI was up 23% at constant currency, with higher online advertising activity and festival sponsorships.
Ticketing AOI was slightly down, with the shift in timing of ticket sales to the first quarter.
Concerts AOI was flat to last year, and Artist Nation's AOI was lower, as we invested in new service lines.
Our operating income for the quarter was $42 million compared with $56 million last year due to higher amortization, primarily related to acquisitions.
Net income this quarter was $15 million versus $23 million in 2014, driven by the lower operating income.
Free cash flow in the second quarter is $91 million versus $83 million in 2014, driven by timing of interest and tax payments, as well as lower distributions to noncontrolling interest partners.
Turning to the results for the first half of the year, revenue at constant currency is up 9% from last year to $3 billion.
Reported revenue is $2.9 billion, up 3%.
AOI is $225 million at constant currency, in line with last year, and reported AOI is $211 million.
And free cash flow is $115 million.
Revenue for the first six months was driven by growth in Concerts, which delivered over half of the overall increase, up from higher North American arena activity and increased festival activity globally.
All of our business segments had higher revenue over last year in the first six months.
AOI for the six months was $211 million, as reported.
Total FX impact to AOI for the first half was $14 million.
Sponsorship and advertising AOI grew 23% at constant currency, with higher online advertising and festival sponsorship.
Ticketing AOI was up 7% at constant currency from higher resale ticket sales and increased primary ticket volume, primarily from Concerts.
Concerts AOI was impacted by the timing of the mix of shows year-to-date.
As <UNK> noted, we expect higher activity for Concerts in the back half of this year, as indicated by the 20% increase in deferred revenue.
Lastly, Artist Nation's AOI was lower with the investments we are making in additional service lines.
Operating income was $18 million for the six months compared to $43 million last year, due to lower AOI along with higher amortization related to acquisitions.
Our net loss in the first six months was $43 million, which was impacted by a $20 million non-cash adjustment to certain working capital accounts due to changes in foreign exchange rates.
Our normalized net loss excluding that was $23 million compared to a loss of $10 million last year.
Free cash flow for the six months is $115 million, in line with last year.
Our cash flow from operations was $357 million for the first six months and was up year-over-year, largely because of the increase in deferred revenue.
As of June 30, we had cash of $1.5 billion, including $618 million in Ticketing client cash and $707 million in net concert event-related cash, with a free cash balance of $201 million.
Our total capital expenditures year-to-date were $64 million, with about a 50% split between maintenance and revenue-generating CapEx.
For the full year, we expected our total capital expenditures will be in line with our previous guidance at around 2% of revenue.
As of June 30, our total debt, including capital leases, was $2 billion, and our weighted average cost of debt is 4.3%.
Our debt covenant currently requires a maximum leverage ratio of five times and we are comfortably in compliance at below four times as of June.
We continue to expect that we will deliver on our three-year plan for 2015, with growth in both revenue and AOI on a constant currency basis, while we continue to invest in our long-term growth strategy.
In summary, and all based on constant currency, overall, we currently expect AOI for the third quarter to be largely in line with last year, along with a strong fourth-quarter across our businesses.
We continue to expect double-digit growth in Concerts AOI for the year, with increased show activity in the back half of the year, particularly in the fourth quarter.
We expect growth in sponsorship and advertising AOI to be in the low-teens, with the majority of the second-half growth driven by a strong fourth quarter.
With the projected strength of both primary and resale ticket sales, especially in the fourth quarter, we expect that Ticketing will deliver high single-digit AOI growth for the year.
And for Artist Nation, we expect AOI for the last half of the year to be more in line with the second half of last year, also more heavily weighted towards the fourth quarter.
Thank you for joining us today.
And we will now open the call for questions.
Operator.
And let's just note, on MLK, in Germany to date, we basically have Ticketmaster Germany.
But because we ---+ it's an allocated market, don't have a lot of activity.
And generally, in Germany overall, Live Nation Ticketmaster is about a negative to a zero business.
Adding now this acquisition, which will be accretive day one, because of the low-cost we were able to attract Marek to come into the network, we get to start that machine now where we've already got a fixed cost base of TM Germany in place, we get to now allocate tickets to our own platform.
Historically, when we brought in Madonna and a U2 into Germany, we sold those off to Marek or someone else.
Now we get to self-promote.
And then, once you start self-promoting with tickets, you start to expand your sponsorship base.
So we are very, very proud about this deal.
We've been working on it a long time.
And Andre, his son, and Marek, provide us an instant base business in Germany to build our TM plus ---+ TM business as well as our sponsorship in Concerts, and grow it from day one.
I would say that just ---+ <UNK>, to add one thing to <UNK>'s comment.
Our output deal for T For Fun as well as CIE in Mexico have ended this year.
So historically, much like the Marek Lieberberg conversation, we sold off our U2 shows and et cetera to either CIE in Mexico and T for Fun in Brazil.
We have not renewed either of those deals nor plan on renewing those.
We plan on taking our content and establishing a presence in those markets so, again, we can start building our ticket sponsorship and overall business off our content.
So whether we do that through an acquisition or a start-up, we are exploring all those options.
But getting kind of from Canada going down to Mexico into South America, it's obviously a natural routing for the 50-plus tours we buy.
So, important markets for us to finish the play on, given we are sending lots of content south.
And on Ticketmaster, <UNK>, we think we just have a ton of runway there.
We have a top five global commerce site, has not historically been anywhere near best-in-class in terms of converting all of that traffic.
So a lot of the hires you will see ---+ they are always going to be centered around our two core missions, a better product and conversion.
So whether it's the ---+ one of our new hires from Virgin Airways who is going to focus around our loyalty and converting that base, or some of the great product people we've hired who are going to continually deliver a more seamless product on our mobile app and our mobile business.
So the tangible benefit is, I think, what you are seeing on a quarterly basis ---+ traffic up, conversion up, GTV up.
To get all those up, we know that we have got to deliver a better product, ongoing, with a robust roadmap.
I think we mentioned today that we had 27 updates to our mobile app.
So we're very serious about having a best-in-class mobile experience from the minute you find out about that show to the digital ecosystem throughout.
And we've got to make sure that our conversion gets better and better as that massive traffic is coming to our door through mobile or on desktop.
We want to make sure we know more about you.
And we've talked a lot about our sales force and our CRM strategy, really mining that data of all those customers that have either come before or are new to our site, offering them a better experience and ultimately converting them and ---+ over time.
So a lot of the hires or anything you see we do is all geared towards either better product and ultimately higher conversion against a very high traffic base that we currently have, and the tangible benefits you will see on continual GTV and traffic usage.
And then, <UNK>, on the free cash question, it's driven by acquisitions at about $60 million, and then the other big driver of that is just continued advances for both artists and taking clients as we continue to grow the future of the business.
Yes, we will continue to renew that on an annual basis.
And as you can see, this year, we were able to expand our continent offering by increasing our festival presence.
And I think by this point now, we have attracted kind of a good audience and a proof of concept that would let you know that there are many other advertisers or streaming platforms that are interested and excited about the opportunity.
So we will remain with Yahoo as long as the economics work for both of us.
And we think this is a viable business going forward.
All right, I'll try to step back.
So let's get back to the strategy.
As we have outlined, we are ---+ our first job over the last couple years was to kind of consolidate and build our global platform from a ---+ on a digital basis.
So now, with over 65 million uniques on a digital basis, we have a wide platform.
Obviously, like anyone else in digital advertising, the advertisers are looking for more and more sticky content that we could create to satisfy their needs.
Yahoo! was our first kind of toe in the water to validate that we could deliver that, and now Vice will be that next evolution where we'll watch a start-up channel.
We will have lots of content, original programming, all based around the live music business.
And we think it's absolutely all incremental new advertising to our platform.
It will be a new channel.
We will have multiple distribution points.
And as we kind of get the combination of the content right with the distribution right, we just think it's all incremental eyeballs and advertising to our current base business.
<UNK>, does that give you a good basis.
Well, we hope to ---+ because we assumed like the Yahoo! model, the investment ultimately gets recouped within that same year by the advertisers.
So Yahoo! wasn't a ---+ was a multimillion dollar investment to stage all those shows annually.
And we have been able with Yahoo! to deliver a profit against that business.
We look at Vice in a similar fashion, as a startup cost to create some new content.
But we believe that through kind of distribution, once we get rolling over the next six months and the eyeballs are delivered, that we will be netting ourselves incremental AOI advertising in digital next year from this.
