Lee Enterprises - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 FY2025 total operating revenue was $144.6M, down 5.8% YoY; digital revenue grew 4.9% YoY to $73.4M and reached 51% of total revenue, while Adjusted EBITDA fell to $7.6M from $18.6M YoY as restructuring and higher non‑operating expenses weighed on results.
• Management reaffirmed FY2025 guidance: Total Digital Revenue growth of 7–10% and Adjusted EBITDA growth in the low single digits; identified ~$40M annualized cost reductions to be executed by end of Q2 FY2025 to offset legacy print headwinds.
• AI commercialization is the key narrative and potential catalyst in 2025: early tests show 85% adoption among engaged users; the “AI Boost” program and partnerships with AWS, Perplexity, and ProRata are expected to accelerate digital revenue through H2 FY2025.
• Liquidity actions continue: $5M of asset sales closed in Q1 with $25M of identified noncore assets to monetize; debt remained $446M with fixed 9% rate, no covenants, and 25‑year maturity, supporting strategic execution.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Digital mix and growth: Total Digital Revenue rose to $73M (+5% YoY same‑store) and reached 51% of revenue; digital‑only subscriptions grew 14% YoY to $22M; Amplified Digital Agency revenue rose 14% YoY to $24M.
• AI traction and product pipeline: “Next‑gen AI personalization” tests achieved 85% adoption among engaged users; “AI Boost” for advertisers is launching to tap AI search/answer channels (Perplexity/ProRata).
• Cost discipline: Cash Costs declined 1% YoY to $138.6M, and ~$40M of annualized cost reductions are slated by end of Q2, targeting print manufacturing, distribution, and corporate efficiencies.

What Went Wrong

• Profitability pressure: Adjusted EBITDA dropped to $7.6M from $18.6M YoY; operating income swung to a $(3.4)M loss vs $7.8M YoY, as restructuring and higher non‑operating expenses offset digital strength.
• Legacy print declines: Print subscription revenue fell 16% YoY to $43.4M; print advertising declined 18.7% YoY to $19.9M; total print revenue dropped 14.7% YoY to $71.2M.
• Estimate context unavailable: S&P Global EPS and revenue consensus were not available; we cannot evaluate beats/misses this quarter against Street estimates (see “Estimates Context”).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Lee Enterprises 2025 Q1 Webcast and Conference Call. The call is being recorded and will be available for replay at investors.lee.net. 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. A link to the live webcast can be found at investors.lee.net. Now I'll turn the call over to your host, Jared Marks, Vice President, Finance.

Jared Marks (VP of Finance)

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, Tim Millage, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and Les Ottolenghi, Chief Transformation and Commercial Officer. Earlier today, we issued a news release with preliminary results for our first fiscal quarter of 2025. It is available at lee.net, as well as major financial websites. Please also refer to our earnings presentation found at investors.lee.net, which 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 in our SEC filings. During the call, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Reconciliations to the relevant GAAP measures are included in the tables accompanying the release. To open the discussion is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Mowbray.

Kevin Mowbray (CEO)

Thanks, Jared, and good morning, everyone. Our team has made great progress driving our digital transformation forward while continuing to serve our communities with trusted high-quality local journalism. In our last call, we shared how Lee has been leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance our digital transformation strategy. I'm excited to again have Les Ottolenghi, our Chief Transformation and Commercial Officer, on the call today. Les will share more in a bit about how Lee is transforming how we engage with our customers and scale our advertising opportunities through the use of AI. Lee is consistently outpacing our industry peers in several important measures of digital growth, both digital subscriptions and digital agency revenue. Digital subscription revenue grew 46% annually over the last three years, nearly doubling the nearest industry peer.

On the advertising side, Amplified Digital agency revenue has significantly outpaced our nearest peer, growing 33% annually over the past three years. Total digital revenue was $302 million on a trailing 12-month basis, including $102 million within Amplified Digital agency. Our Q1 digital revenue grew 5% year-over-year, with each stream of digital revenue showing growth. Digital subscription revenue continued to lead our strong growth, growing 14% year-over-year. Our digital revenue is diverse and growing, and our Q1 results put us in a position to take advantage of the AI partnerships we have recently made. I would like to pass the call over to Les.

Les Ottolenghi (Chief Transformation and Commercial Officer)

Thanks, Kevin. Building on the momentum from our last earnings call, we've made significant advances in AI-driven personalization for our readers and AI business technology for our advertisers. For our readers and subscribers, we've developed a next-generation AI personalization system powered by AI search and AI answer engine technology through our partnerships with Perplexity and AWS. This system enhances how users interact with our content and ensures that Lee's trusted journalism is more relevant, engaging, and accessible than ever before. As part of this, we're testing a hyper-personalized consumer news experience powered by AI and Lee's extensive news network. Currently, we are testing across our major news markets with expanded testing throughout the quarter. There's more to come in the next couple of quarters, and early test results are promising, with adoption rates already at 85% among engaged users, demonstrating a strong demand for AI-enhanced news experiences.

On the advertising side, we've launched SmartSites, an AI-powered website platform that transforms business pages into dynamic search and answer hubs. This technology provides businesses with a competitive advantage, increasing user engagement and time spent on their site by a factor of five to one compared to traditional specialized content websites. In addition, we're excited to announce the AI Enablement Program for AI Boost and new AI-powered advertising and automation solutions that generate high-quality content for our businesses. The AI Boost program will begin creating automated text-based advertising and marketing content, ensuring businesses maximize their visibility across the emerging AI search channels and traditional global web search. As we progress into 2025, this product will expand and will include automated podcast and video content creation, providing advertisers with a full suite of AI-driven content solutions to enhance their brand presence.

Complementing this launch, we will introduce Small and Medium Business AI Advanced Tools and Resource Center, which will include new AI-powered marketing tools and advertising automation solutions to help businesses scale their digital presence more effectively. There are more details to come, and that will be shared in the next quarter. At Lee Enterprises, we remain committed to leveraging AI to create value for our readers, advertisers, and shareholders, driving both engagement and revenue and growth. More to come in the next quarter as we continue our AI-driven expansion. Next, I'll pass the call over to Tim.

Tim Millage (CFO)

Thank you, Les. Digital revenue has grown more than 17% annually since FY2021, and that has translated to 13% annual growth in digital gross margins. Our digital margin is also an impressive 70%, meaning our digital businesses are highly profitable. Replacing upfront revenue with growing and profitable digital revenue will help us achieve long-term sustainability, and we see that on the horizon in the next year or two. Speaking to the quarter's results, total operating revenue in the Q1 was $145 million. Total digital revenue continued to show growth over the prior year, up 5%, led by 14% revenue growth in both digital subscription revenue and Amplified Digital revenue. As Les mentioned, it is still early days with our AI partnerships. However, we expect them to accelerate digital revenue growth in the last three quarters of FY2025, achieving our outlook of 7%-10% growth year-over-year.

Moving over to the cost side, Lee has a successful track record of effective cost management. We remain focused on operational excellence and driving margin in our legacy print business. However, our main priority is to drive long-term sustainable digital revenue growth. Investments in AI will drive new revenue and maintain our dominant position in the local markets. As we've proven year after year, we expect our investments to be more than offset by cost-saving efforts on the legacy side of our business. Continuing that track record, we have identified $40 million in annual cost reductions that will be executed by the end of the Q2. On the over to the balance sheet, our credit agreement with Berkshire Hathaway includes favorable terms, including a 20-year runway, a fixed interest rate, and no financial performance covenants. These better-than-market terms allow us to stay laser-focused on executing our strategy.

We also continue to identify opportunities to monetize our non-core assets, which improves liquidity and facilitates accelerated debt repayment. In the Q1, we closed over $5 million of asset sales, and another $1 million deal has already been closed since December. We have identified an additional $25 million of non-core assets to monetize, and the monetization of these assets will provide a significant source of liquidity in 2025. As a reminder, Lee's three-pillar growth strategy is poised to achieve total digital revenue of more than $450 million by 2028. As Kevin mentioned earlier, our Q1 results show $302 million of annualized digital revenue, demonstrating we are well on our way to achieving our total digital revenue target. Achieving our long-term outlook will come from continued growth in digital subscription revenue, amplified digital agency revenue growth, and new AI revenue opportunities.

Looking at the full year, I'd like to remind everyone of our 2025 outlook for total digital revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We expect total digital revenue growth in the range of 7%-10%, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to grow in the low single digits. With that, I will turn the call back to Kevin for closing comments.

Kevin Mowbray (CEO)

I'd like to reiterate my gratitude to the entire Lee team for the progress we've made on our digital transformation. We're paving the way for Lee to lead the industry in this era of AI digital transformation. This concludes our remarks. The team will remain on the line for any questions you may have. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you are accessing this call by webcast, you may submit questions on your screen. Those questions will be answered during the call as time permits. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first caller comes from the line of Daniel Harriman from Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open.

Daniel Harriman (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple of ones, and I'll start with one for Les. Obviously, a lot going on with the AI, and I understand that you may not be able to share everything right now, but can you just talk about kind of the plans to monetize your AI library and any potential launches we could be looking for in your second fiscal quarter? Then just the value proposition that you may be providing to your advertising customers and conversations that you're having with them.

My second question would be more for Tim and Kevin, and that's just if you could provide a little bit more information on the cost initiatives that you've identified for 2025, as well as your confidence in hitting the range of digital revenue growth that you provided along with EBITDA, understanding that the most recent quarter was a little bit challenging. Any information on that? I didn't see it in the release, and if I missed it, I'm sorry, but just how many digital subscribers did you end the quarter with? Thanks, guys.

Les Ottolenghi (Chief Transformation and Commercial Officer)

Great. Certainly. With regards to our library of content, we're evaluating what is the highest return, obviously, that we can get for our corpus of information, news, and everything that is a core asset of the business. We're taking all the right steps to analyze what is the best deal that we can possibly get and who are the correct partners that will continue that opportunity into the future. We think there's a lot of yield in our content, and obviously, we want to get the most out of it. Right now, the closest proximity to revenue and opportunity is AI Boost. That's where our advertisers gain the benefit of the relationships we've already established with Perplexity, ProRata.ai, and being able to list their content in those search and answer engines so that they can establish their next best position in the digital marketplace.

As global search now transitions to these search and answer engines powered by AI, we're the first company getting there to provide that capability. We feel very strong about the AI Boost program. I think just in general, as we see lots of other changes moving into what is called the white space, these applications of AI and not just the large language models, we're really well positioned, better than anybody in the industry, to take advantage of that. We're proving that already with the test of our personalized news services.

Tim Millage (CFO)

I can jump into your question regarding our confidence in our outlook for FY2025. You mentioned the cost side. I think that's one aspect that gives us confidence. I'd say overall, there's three things that I would point to that give us confidence in achieving our full-year guidance. Number one, continuing to gain scale from our core digital businesses. That's the Amplified Digital, that's our digital-only subscription revenue. Both of those revenue streams grew 14% year-over-year in the Q1, our fastest-growing revenue categories. They make up 36% of our revenue in the quarter and continuing to gain scale. On the unit side, you asked specifically about units. Digital subscription units were up 8% and totaled 774,000.

The second item that gives us confidence in achieving our full-year guidance is what Les just talked about, accelerating our growth due to the AI initiatives, specifically this AI Boost program and other programs. We think that has the opportunity to accelerate digital revenue growth in quarters two, more than three and four as well. That can help accelerate revenue trends. The last point is on the cost side. We've identified $40 million of annualized costs that we're evaluating and expect to execute by the end of the Q2. That's a number of things, including optimizing our print business and driving efficiencies through additional technologies like agentic AI and others. It gives you a little flavor as to how we're thinking about FY2025 and why we have confidence in achieving them.

Daniel Harriman (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, guys. That was really helpful. Thank you. Best of luck in the coming quarter.

Tim Millage (CFO)

Great. Thank you, Daniel. We have no questions on the web. I will turn it back to Kevin for closing remarks.

Kevin Mowbray (CEO)

Thank you all for joining us this morning. We remain keenly focused on transforming our business for the long-term benefit of our shareholders, our employees, our readers, and our advertisers. We appreciate your time this morning and your interest in the company. Thanks again for joining the call.

Operator (participant)

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