Lamar Advertising (LAMR) Acquires Steen Outdoor's Assets

Lamar Advertising Company (NASDAQ:LAMR) announced an all-cash acquisition of the assets of Steen Outdoor Advertising, for an undisclosed amount. The buyout includes around 460 billboard faces, of which 23 are digital bulletin faces. These are predominately located in Philadelphia, western New Jersey, Delaware and suburbs of Pennsylvania.

Lamar is one of the largest owners and operators of outdoor advertising structures in the U.S. The company offers advertising services to restaurants, retailers, automotive, real estate, health care, gaming, hotels and motels. It caters the largest network of digital billboards in the U.S., with over 2,600 displays. Recently, Lamar launched the Personalized Digital Billboard Campaign to promote the release of Paramount Pictures’ upcoming film – Transformers: The Last Knight. This campaign helped Paramount Pictures in delivering a personalized one-to-one message to Transformers’ fans.

The above mentioned buyout is a strategic fit for the company as it adds high quality assets to the REIT’s portfolio. It will enable Lamar to expand its footprint in and around Philadelphia, as well as fortify its media presence in the Northeast. This acquisition helped the company to emerge as one of the major player in the nation's media market

Shares of Lamar have underperformed its industry, year to date. The stock has gained 1.9%, while the industry gained 4.1%. However, over the last 30 days, its full-year 2017 funds from operations (FFO) per share estimate remained unchanged.


Currently, Lamar carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Investors interested in the REIT space, may consider other stocks like DCT Industrial Trust Inc. (NYSE:DCT) , PS Business Parks, Inc. (NYSE:PSB) and Liberty Property Trust (NYSE:LPT) . All of these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2.

Over the last 30 days, DCT Industrial Trust’s FFO per share for third-quarter 2017 remained unchanged at 60 cents.

Over the last 30 days, PS Business Parks’ FFO per share for third-quarter 2017 moved up 2% to $1.53.

Over the last 30 days, Liberty Property Trust's FFO per share for third-quarter edged down 1.6% to 62 cents.

Note: FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income. All EPS numbers presented in this write up represent FFO per share.

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