Q4 2023 Lee Enterprises Inc Earnings Call

Okay.

Welcome to the Lee Enterprises, 2023 fourth quarter webcast and conference call.

This call is being recorded and will be available for replay at investors Dot Lee Dot net.

At this time all participants are in a listen only mode.

At the close of the planned remarks, there will be an opportunity for questions participants accessing this call by webcast may submit written questions through the website and they will be answered during the call as time permits otherwise you will receive a response.

Later.

To the live webcast can be found at investors Dot Lee Dot net now.

Now I would turn the call over to your host Josh Reinhart's, Vice President Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Thank you for joining us.

To myself speaking on this morning's call are Kevin Mowbray, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Millage, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

Also with us today and available for questions as Nathan Burk, Vice President audience strategy.

Earlier today, we issued a news release with preliminary results for our fourth fiscal quarter of 2023.

It is available what we got net as well as major financial websites. Please also refer to our earnings presentation found at investors.

No that includes supplemental information.

As a reminder, this morning's discussion will include forward looking statements based on our current expectations. These statements are subject to certain risks trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially such factors are described in this morning's news release and also in our SEC filings.

During the call we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA cash cost in same store revenues, which are defined in our news release. We will also refer to you to just digital direct cost which is defined in the earnings presentation for each of these non-GAAP measures.

Filiation to the relevant GAAP measures are included in tables accompanying the release and now to open the discussion is our president and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Mowbray.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us I'm excited to share with you all of the many reasons why we're optimistic about the future of Lee will begin this morning with an overview of our fiscal year 2023 operating results, including our industry, leading digital performance.

We will also provide an update to our digital transformation strategy and given the strong execution of the three pillars I'm excited to share increases to our long term outlook.

The <unk> team delivered another strong quarter with continued execution on our three pillars digital growth strategy and I am very encouraged at the pace by which we're transforming <unk> into a vibrant digitally centric company.

Our fourth quarter results helped us to achieve all of our full year guidance.

Our ability to exceed expectations and produce industry, leading results in this challenging environment demonstrates the success of our strategy. The resiliency of our business model and support these investment thesis and increases our conviction in achieving our long term goals.

Digital line subscribers, 36% for the year, leading us to substantially exceed our initial guidance with 721000 digital subscribers by the end of the fiscal year and we're also encouraged that we grew average rates for our digital only subscriptions driving fourth quarter digital.

<unk> revenue.

68% year over year and up 51% for the full year on.

On the advertising side outside digital grew revenue, 11% in the fourth quarter and 20% for the full year with revenue totaling $91 million for the fiscal year pacing well ahead of other digital marketing solutions in the industry.

These strong performances in digital revenue are pushing us down the path of driving recurring profitable digital revenue, which bolsters our confidence in achieving our long term goals.

We faced significant macroeconomic headwinds this year, the soft advertising environment across the industry and then in certain markets for subscription products with consumers. Our print revenue streams were negatively impacted as revenue trends worsened. This team took quick and decisive action by eliminating more than one.

$100 million in cost reductions this year.

The accelerated growth in digital revenue combined with solid cost management resulted in achieving our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance.

This solid performance is a testament to the fact, we have the right team and the right strategy in place now.

And now I'll pass it to Tim for more detail on our fourth quarter results.

Thank you, Kevin and good morning, everyone.

Total operating revenue was $164 million in the fourth quarter digital revenue growth continued at a strong pace with total digital revenue up 14% driven by 68% growth in digital subscription revenue and 11% growth at amplified digital as Kevin previously mentioned.

Cash costs were down 17% in the fourth quarter as a result of our responses earlier in the year to address the soft revenue environment combined with cost actions related to our digital transformation.

Finally, adjusted EBITDA totaled $30 million in the fourth quarter in line with prior year, and a 29% sequential improvement to third quarter adjusted EBITDA.

Albert challenges faced this year, our rapid digital growth and strong cost management gives us momentum heading into fiscal 2024.

Let me spend a few minutes walking through the execution of our cost actions as we took significant action in 2023 as.

As we previously mentioned the headwinds faced this past year accelerated declines of print revenue and as a result, we executed more than $100 million of cost actions with a focus on cost tied to our print business.

The majority of our cost actions were permanent and given the timing of the actions, we will have a $50 million savings in 2000.

Fiscal year 2024, and the actions we took last year.

In addition, we also executed a temporary actions totaling $13 million of one time savings in FY2023.

While the team remains steadfast in managing costs associated with our print revenue streams. We continue to focus on driving recurring sustainable digital revenue growth for the future and are committed to making the necessary incremental investments.

Investments, we made in new talent and technology and the increased digital cost of goods sold totaled $25 million.

These costs will have a short term impact on our margin profile, but are expected to drive the digital transformation.

Moving to slide seven we continue to strengthen our balance sheet. The principal amount of debt at the end of the fourth quarter was 456 billion a reduction of $120 million since March of 2020.

As a reminder, our credit agreement with Berkshire, our sole lender has favorable terms that are incredibly important for us as we execute our strategy.

It allows us the ability to make the necessary investments in talent and technology to fuel our recurring sustainable revenue growth.

The agreement was executed in 2020 and has a fixed interest rate and a 25 year maturity. These favorable terms have been incredibly helpful. In a rising rate environment, we have seen over the last few years.

In 2023, we've made no pension contributions as our pensions are overfunded in the aggregate.

Finally, we continue to identify opportunities to monetize our noncore assets, which facilitate the accelerated debt repayment.

Closed $12 million of asset sales this fiscal year, and we've identified an additional $50 million of noncore assets to monetize which are in various phases of the sale process.

As a reminder, with solid execution of our three pillar digital growth strategy as well as our commitment to improving our balance sheet. Our goal is to achieve our long term target leverage of under two five times.

With that I will turn it back to Kevin.

Thanks, Tim or three pillar digital growth strategy is guiding our digital transformation and is the foundation of our investment thesis.

Focus on expanding our digital audiences growing our digital subscriber base and revenue and diversifying and expanding our offerings for local individual advertisers.

As we complete fiscal year 2023, and enter into fiscal year 2024, we'd like to provide updated long term targets on key metrics for the company, including expecting our three pillar of digital growth strategy to drive more than $450 million of recurring sustainable ditch.

<unk> revenue.

In fact with that level of performance is sustainable and vibrant from revenues and cash flows from only our digital products in five years. That's an incredibly important point is the goal of our three pillar our digital growth strategy plays out.

May continues to be the fastest growing digital subscription platform and local media by a significant margin our fourth quarter digital results led the industry for the 16th consecutive quarter. That's four years of industry, leading digital subscriber growth.

We now have 721000 digital subscribers, which represented an impressive 43% compound annual growth rate over the last three years.

Best in class performance gives us even more confidence in achieving our long term goals, which we'll cover in more detail momentarily.

Anti digital led the industry with an impressive 20% year over year growth. Despite the soft advertising environment revenue in FY digital now totals over $91 million and has grown a staggering 50% annually over the last three years far outpacing others within the industry.

By these industry, leading metrics total digital revenue achieved our guidance that we set last year, while growing 14% year over year and I will continue to experiment on digital revenue on the next slide.

The significant growth of our digital revenue from our three pillar digital growth strategy has transformed the composition of it.

<unk> revenue over the last few years.

When we first launched our treats all of our digital growth strategy digital revenue represented only 21% of our total operating revenue and today total digital revenue represented 44% of that revenue, we expect to reach the revenue inflection point in FY 'twenty four is more than 50% of our revenue will be from digital sources.

And through continued strong execution of our strategy, we expect by 2028 more than two thirds of our revenue will be digital allowing for more consistent overall topline revenue performance.

Our industry, leading growth in both digital subscriptions and digital marketing solutions will continue to drive the to this point.

The tremendous progress we've made on our digital transformation continues to reinforce we have the right strategy and the right team in place.

Our three pillar our digital growth strategy is getting our digital transformation is the foundation of our investment thesis.

Doing so allowed us to increase our shareholder value through continued debt reduction and multiple expansion.

Slide 14 provides a long term outlook of our digital subscriptions and associated revenue.

The acceleration in the subscription revenue growth over the past few years is driven by the investment thesis we have made in top talent in the areas of content branding and consumer marketing. These investments are producing strong results through engaging local content effective branding campaigns and GPI driven marketing campaigns and.

We expect the results to continue to push forward.

With these investments and actions, we expect to achieve $150 million of recurring digital subscription revenue by fiscal 2028 fueled by $1 2 million digital subscribers.

Turning to slide 15, our third pillar focuses on diversifying and expanding our offerings for advertisers through both amplified in our owned and operated digital products.

With advanced data driven AD tech specialized category expertise scalable custom video content and powerful first party data access amplified as a strong partner for local and regional businesses looking to drive growth and we continue to see a significant growth runway.

As we execute that strategy.

While amplified as the growth engine for top line advertising revenue are massive owned and operated digital audiences fuel high margin digital advertising revenue, our owned and operated properties attract massive audiences and we're offering more video inventory and branded content opportunities to boost digital advertising revenue.

Overall, we're confident in our advertising outlook because our team is intensely focused on growing our high margin digital advertising revenue and now I will turn it back to Tim to close out.

Thanks, Kevin our digital transformation is well underway and we wanted to take the opportunity to provide an updated look at the performance of our digital business.

As we aim to become sustainable and vibrant from a revenue and cash flow from our digital businesses. Only we are not only focused on growing topline revenue, but also maximizing the margin profile of our digital revenue streams.

These businesses are growing at a rapid clip.

Kevin spent some time this morning talking about the industry, leading revenue performance, giving us confidence to increase our long term outlook.

Direct margin tied to our digital businesses was 72% in FY2023 totaling $197 million. We expect these exceptional margin profile to remain high as we scale the business.

Indirect operating expenses outside of our direct costs to fulfill our predominantly fixed.

Achieving our long term digital revenue outlook and maintaining our digital direct margin allows us to generate direct margin is sufficient to offset the direct margin of our print businesses.

Differently, we are on a clear path to being sustainable and vibrant from a revenue and cash flow from our digital products only that is the goal of our transformation and our pathway is cleared.

And looking more near term slide 17 provides a book at our fiscal year FY 'twenty for outlook.

We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $83 million to $90 million.

It's worth noting our cost actions have grown adjusted EBITDA in the second half of fiscal 'twenty three and these actions are expected to provide a significant benefit heading into 2024.

Total digital revenue is expected to be in the range of $310 million to $330 million and digital only subscribers are expected to total 771000.

And now I will turn it back over to Kevin to wrap up thanks, Tim to wrap up I'd like to thank the entirely team for their efforts in driving our transformation as we move through our transformation and achieve our long term goals, we expect to drive significant value for our shareholders through converting debt to equity and through our repositioning and Lee.

As a digital first company under the guidance of oversight of our board of directors. The leadership team's continued execution of our growth strategy sets. The stage for significant long term value creation, we have the right, Florida, the right team and the right strategy to create long term value for our readers users advertisers and shared.

Holders. This concludes our remarks the team will remain on the line for any questions. You may have operator. Please open the line for questions. Thank.

Thank you at this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. As a reminder, if you are accessing this call by webcast you may submit typed questions on your screen those questions will be answered during the call as time permits.

One moment, please while we poll for questions.

The first question comes from Danielle Herman with Sidoti Your line is open.

Kevin Tim Good morning, and congrats on the Fabulous fiscal year.

I have a few questions for you and I'm going to start on the print side if that's okay.

Now that we're in the early stages of your fiscal 'twenty four but can you just give us a little bit of an idea as to the trajectory print decline both for the for the year and also thus far into the quarter from a print subscriber perspective, and also an advertising perspective and then some.

Oh really.

Tim you had talked about $50 million in noncore assets that you had identified and I'm just wondering if that those proceeds will be earmarked for debt reduction.

Great. Thanks for the question.

I appreciate that so first if you go to your first question with respect to our forecast for 2024 and certainly in 'twenty three.

We did make some some product changes on the advertising side.

Did take down our revenue. So some of the same store same store trends are quite a bit different than as reported trends in <unk>.

Looking at the same store trend at this point, we're looking at similar trends in 2024 on the print side than what we saw in 2023 and that's consistent with what we're seeing so far in the first quarter.

With respect to your question on the non core assets.

Youre right all of those would be earmarked any free cash flow, we have from that would be earmarked towards debt reduction and that's just a way for us to accelerate some of the deleveraging that we have.

Please standby for the next question.

The next question.

Comes from Michael Pinsky with Noble capital markets. Your line is open.

Our next question comes from Michael Kaplinsky with Noble capital markets. Your line is now open.

Thank you now we will pull some questions from the webcast Josh. Please go ahead.

Our first question is.

The guidance for digital subscription unit growth for fiscal year 'twenty four is a reduction from the fiscal year 'twenty three growth what is driving that slowdown.

So as you saw in 2023.

We outpaced our guidance by a significant margin for.

For our digital subscribers.

The last several years that our goals for our digital subscription is really the revenue component of it and some quarters and some years, we're going to be outpacing on the unit growth some quarters. Some years will be outpacing on the rate growth and we saw tremendous growth in rates in 2023.

And that led to the big lift in.

In revenue throughout the back half of 2023, specifically on the go.

We feel good about the guidance that we have with 771 that's still.

Puts us on a path to reaching one 2 million subscribers.

Over the next five years.

So that concludes the questions.

The web I'll turn it back to Kevin for any closing remarks, well. Thank you for joining us today as I mentioned earlier, we remain keenly focused on transforming our business model for the long term benefit of our shareholders our employees our readers and our advertisers. We appreciate your time and your interest in Lee. Thank you again.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen at this time, we have reached the end of our question and answer session. This concludes our call.

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Welcome to the Lee Enterprises, 2023 fourth quarter webcast and conference call.

This call is being recorded and will be available for replay at investors Dot dot.

Dot net.

At this time all participants are in a listen only mode.

At the close of the planned remarks, there will be an opportunity for questions participants accessing this call by webcast may submit written questions through the website and they will be answered during the call as time permits otherwise you will receive a response.

Later.

Link to the live webcast can be found at investors Dot dot.

Matt.

Now I will turn the call over to your host Josh Reinhart's, Vice President Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Thank you for joining US in addition to myself speaking on this morning's call are Kevin Mowbray, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tim Millage, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

Also with us today and available for questions at Nathan Becky Vice President audience strategy.

Earlier today, we issued a news release with preliminary results for our fourth fiscal quarter of 2023.

It is available at <unk> dot net as well as major financial websites.

Please also refer to our earnings presentation found at investors Dot dot.

Dot net that include supplemental information.

As a reminder, this morning's discussion will include forward looking statements based on our current expectations. These statements are subject to certain risks trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially such factors are described in this morning's news release and also in our SEC filings.

During the call we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA cash cough and same store revenues, which are defined in our news release, we will also refer to digital to digital direct cost, which is defined in the earnings presentation for each of these non-GAAP measures reconcile.

<unk> to the relevant GAAP measures are included in tables accompanying the release and now to open the discussion is our president and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Mowbray.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us I'm excited to share with you all of the many reasons why we're optimistic about the future of Lee will begin this morning with an overview of our fiscal year 2023 operating results, including our industry, leading digital performance.

We will also provide an update to our digital transformation strategy and given the strong execution of the three pillars I'm excited to share increases to our long term outlook.

The <unk> team delivered another strong quarter with continued execution on our three pillars digital growth strategy and I'm very encouraged that the pace by which we're transforming <unk> into a vibrant digitally centric company.

Our fourth quarter results helped us to achieve all of our full year guidance.

Our ability to exceed expectations and produce industry, leading results in this challenging environment demonstrates the success of our strategy. The resiliency of our business model to support these investment thesis and increases our conviction in achieving our long term goals.

We grew digital line subscribers, 36% for the year, leading us to substantially exceeded our initial guidance with 721000 digital subscribers by the end of the fiscal year and we're also encouraged that we grew average rates for our digital only subscriptions driving fourth quarter digital.

Scripts and revenue up 68% year over year and up 51% for the full year.

On the advertising side and side digital grew revenue, 11% in the fourth quarter and 20% for the full year with revenue totaling $91 million for the fiscal year pacing well ahead of other digital marketing solutions in the industry.

These strong performances in digital revenue are pushing us down the path of driving recurring profitable digital revenue, which bolsters our confidence in achieving our long term goals.

We faced significant macroeconomic headwinds this year, the soft advertising environment across the industry.

Certain markets for subscription products with consumers our print revenue streams were negatively impacted as revenue trends worsened. This team took quick and decisive action by eliminating more than $100 million in cost reductions this year.

The accelerated growth in digital revenue combined with solid cost management resulted in achieving our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance.

This solid performance is a testament to the fact, we have the right team and the right strategy in place and.

And now I'll pass it to Tim for more detail on our fourth quarter results.

Thank you, Kevin and good morning, everyone.

Total operating revenue was $164 million in the fourth quarter digital revenue growth continued at a strong pace with total digital revenue up 14% driven by 68% growth in digital subscription revenue and 11% growth at amplified digital as Kevin previously mentioned.

Cash costs were down 17% in the fourth quarter as a result of our responses earlier in the year to address the soft revenue environment combined with cost actions related to our digital transformation.

<unk> adjusted EBITDA totaled $30 million in the fourth quarter in line with prior year, and a 29% sequential improvement to third quarter adjusted EBITDA.

By Alba challenges faced this year, our rapid digital growth and strong cost management gives us momentum heading into fiscal 2024.

Let me spend a few minutes walking through the execution of our cost actions as we took significant action in 2023.

As we previously mentioned the headwinds faced this past year accelerated declines of print revenue and as a result, we executed more than $100 million of cost actions with a focus on cost tied to our print business.

The majority of our cost actions were permanent and given the timing of the actions will have a $50 million of savings in 2000 fiscal year 2024 from the actions we took last year.

In addition, we also executed temporary actions totaling $13 million of one time savings in FY2023.

While the team remains steadfast in managing costs associated with our print revenue streams. We continue to focus on driving recurring sustainable digital revenue growth for the future and are committed to making the necessary incremental investments.

Investments, we made in new talent and technology and the increased digital cost of goods sold totaled $25 million.

These costs will have a short term impact on our margin profile, but are expected to drive the digital transformation.

Moving to slide seven we continue to strengthen our balance sheet. The principal amount of debt at the end of the fourth quarter was $456 million a reduction of $120 million since March of 2020.

As a reminder, our credit agreement with Berkshire, our sole lender has favorable terms that are incredibly important for us as we execute our strategy.

It allows us the ability to make the necessary investments in talent and technology to fuel our recurring sustainable revenue growth.

The agreement was executed in 2020 and has a fixed interest rate and a 25 year maturity be favorable terms have been incredibly helpful. In a rising rate environment, we have seen over the last few years.

In 2023, we made no pension contributions as our pensions are overfunded in the aggregate.

Finally, we continue to identify opportunities to monetize our noncore assets, which facilitate the accelerated debt repayment.

Closed $12 million of asset sales this fiscal year, and we've identified an additional $50 million of noncore assets to monetize which are in various stages of the sale process.

As a reminder, with solid execution of our three pillar digital growth strategy as well as our commitment to improving our balance sheet. Our goal is to achieve our long term target leverage of under two five times.

With that I will turn it back to Kevin.

Thanks, Tim Griffith rebuild our digital growth strategy is guiding our digital transformation. It is the foundation of our investment thesis, we're focused on expanding our digital audiences growing our digital subscriber base and revenue and diversifying and expanding our offerings for local and regional.

<unk>.

As we complete fiscal year 2023, and enter into fiscal year 2024, we'd like to provide updated long term targets on key metrics for the company, including expecting our three pillar, our digital growth strategy to drive more than $450 million of recurring sustainable ditch.

It'll revenue.

In fact with that level of performance is sustainable and vibrant from revenues and cash flows from only our digital products in five years. That's an incredibly important point is the growth of our three pillar digital growth strategy plays out.

Lee continues to be the fastest growing digital subscription platform and local media by a significant margin our fourth quarter digital results led the industry for the 16th consecutive quarter. That's four years of industry, leading digital subscriber growth.

We now have 721000 digital subscribers, which represented an impressive 43% compound annual growth rate over the last three years.

Best in class performance gives us even more confidence in achieving our long term goals, which we'll cover in more detail momentarily.

Anti digital led the industry with an impressive 20% year over year growth. Despite the soft advertising environment Rev.

No doubt that digital now totals over $91 million and has grown a staggering 50% annually over the last three years far outpacing others within the industry.

By these industry, leading metrics total digital revenue achieved our guidance that we set last year, while growing 14% year over year and I will continue to experiment and digital revenue on the next slide.

The significant growth of our digital revenue from our three until our digital growth strategy has transformed the composition of lease revenue over the last few years.

When we first launched our three till our digital growth strategy digital revenue represented only 21% of our total operating revenue and today total digital revenue represents 44% of that revenue, we expect to reach the revenue inflection point in FY 'twenty four is more than 50% of our revenue will be from digital sources.

And through continued strong execution of our strategy, we expect by 2028 more than two thirds of our revenue will be digital allowing for more consistent overall top line revenue performance.

Our industry, leading growth in both digital subscriptions and digital marketing solutions will continue to drive the to this point.

The tremendous progress we've made on our digital transformation continues to reinforce we have the right strategy and the right team in place.

Our digital growth strategy is getting our digital transformation is the foundation of our investment thesis doing so allows us to increase our shareholder value through continued debt reduction and multiple expansion.

Slide 14 provides a long term outlook of our digital subscriptions and associated revenue.

The acceleration in the subscription revenue growth over the past few years is driven by the investment thesis we have made in top talent in the areas of content branding and consumer marketing. These investments are producing strong results through engaging local content effective branding campaigns and GPI driven marketing campaigns and.

We expect the results to continue to push forward.

With these investments and actions, we expect to achieve $150 million of recurring digital subscription revenue by fiscal 2028 fueled by $1 2 million digital subscribers.

Turning to slide 15, our third pillar focuses on diversifying and expanding our offerings for advertisers through both amplified in our owned and operated digital products.

Yes.

With advanced data driven AD tech specialized category expertise scalable custom video content and powerful first party data access amplified as a strong partner for local and regional businesses looking to drive growth and we continue to see a significant growth runway.

Execute that strategy well.

<unk> amplified as the growth engine for top line advertising revenue are massive owned and operated digital audiences fuel high margin digital advertising revenue.

Owned and operated properties attract massive audiences.

Offering more video inventory and branded content opportunities to boost digital advertising revenue.

Overall, we're confident in our advertising outlook because our team is intensely focused on growing our high margin digital advertising revenue and now I will turn it back to Tim to close out.

Thanks, Kevin our digital transformation is well underway and we wanted to take the opportunity to provide an updated look at the performance of our digital business.

As we aim to become sustainable and vibrant from a revenue and cash flow from our digital businesses. Only we are not only focused on growing topline revenue, but also maximizing the margin profile of our digital revenue streams.

These businesses are growing at a rapid clip.

Kevin spent some time this morning talking about the industry, leading revenue performance, giving us confidence to increase our long term outlook.

Direct margin tied to our digital businesses was 72% in FY2023 totaling $197 million. We expect these exceptional margin profile to remain high as we scale the business.

Indirect operating expenses outside of our direct costs to fulfill our predominantly fixed.

Achieving our long term digital revenue outlook and maintaining our digital direct margin allows lee to generate direct margins sufficient to offset the direct margin of our print businesses.

Differently, we are on a clear path to being sustainable and vibrant from a revenue and cash flow from our digital products only that is the goal of our transformation and our pathway is clear.

And looking more near term slide 17 provides our book at our fiscal year FY 'twenty outlook.

We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $83 million to $90 million.

It's worth noting our cost actions have grown adjusted EBITDA in the second half of fiscal 'twenty three and these actions are expected to provide a significant benefit heading into 2024.

Total digital revenue is expected to be in the range of $310 million to $330 million and digital only subscribers are expected to total 771000.

And now I will turn it back over to Kevin to wrap up thanks, Tim to wrap up I'd like to thank the entirely team for their efforts in driving our transformation as we move through our transformation and achieve our long term goals, we expect to drive significant value for our shareholders through converting debt to equity and through our repositioning and Lee.

As a digital first company under the guidance of oversight of our board of directors. The leadership team's continued execution of our growth strategy sets. The stage for significant long term value creation, we have the right, Florida, the right team and the right strategy to create long term value for our leaders users advertisers and share.

Holders. This concludes our remarks the team will remain on the line for any questions. You may have operator. Please open the line for questions. Thank.

Thank you at this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. As a reminder, if you are accessing this call by webcast you may submit typed questions on your screen those questions will be answered during the call as time permits.

One moment, please while we poll for questions.

Okay.

The first question comes from Danielle Herman with Sidoti Your line is open.

Kevin Tim Good morning, and congrats on the Fabulous fiscal year.

I have a few questions for you and I'm going to start on the print side, if thats, okay, and I know that we're in the early stages of your fiscal 'twenty four but can you just give us a little bit of an idea as to the trajectory of print decline both for the for the year and also thus far into the quarter from a print subscriber perspective and also.

An advertising perspective and then.

Similarly.

Tim you had talked about $50 million of noncore assets that you had identified and I'm. Just wondering if that those proceeds will be earmarked for debt reduction.

Right.

Great. Thanks for the question.

Yeah I appreciate that so first if we go to your first question with respect to our forecast for 2024 and certainly in 'twenty three.

We did make some some product changes on the advertising side that did take down our revenues for some of the same store same store trends are quite a bit different than the as reported trends and looking at the same store trend at this point, we're looking at similar trends in 2024 on the print side than what we saw in.

In 2023, and that's consistent with what we're seeing so far in the first quarter.

With respect to your question on the noncore assets Youre right all of those would be earmarked for a free cash flow, we have from that would be earmarked.

Towards debt reduction.

Just a way for us to accelerate some of the deleveraging that we have.

Please standby for the next question.

The next question.

Comes from Michael Pinsky with Noble capital markets. Your line is open.

Our next question comes from Michael Kaplinsky with Noble capital markets. Your line is open.

Thank you now we will pull some questions from the webcast Josh. Please go ahead.

Our first question.

The guidance for digital subscription unit growth for fiscal year 'twenty four is a reduction from the fiscal year 'twenty three growth what is driving that slowdown.

So as you saw in 2023.

We outpaced our guidance by a significant margin.

For our digital subscribers.

Said the last several years that our goals for our digital subscription is really the revenue component of it and some quarters and some years, we're going to be outpacing on the unit growth quarters. Some years will be outpacing on the rate growth and we saw tremendous growth in rates in 2023.

And that led to the big lift in.

In revenue throughout the back half of 2023, specifically and so we feel good about the guidance that we have with 771 it still.

Puts us on a path to reaching one 2 million subscribers.

Over the next five years.

So that concludes the questions on the web I'll turn it back to Kevin for any closing remarks, well. Thank you for joining us today as I mentioned earlier, we remain keenly focused on transforming our business model for the long term benefit of our shareholders our employees and.

Readers of our advertisers we appreciate your time and your interest in Lee. Thank you again.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen at this time, we have reached the end of our question and answer session. This concludes our call.

Q4 2023 Lee Enterprises Inc Earnings Call

Demo

Lee Enterprises

Earnings

Q4 2023 Lee Enterprises Inc Earnings Call

LEE

Thursday, December 7th, 2023 at 3:00 PM

Transcript

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