00:22:03 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:22:03] S0: a [00:22:03] S1: multiple. It's not an absolute number. [00:22:06] S0: But you're right, like what a brilliant and very gutsy move at the time, because it's not like money is readily available just to be passed off to purchase companies. Today there's a lot of liquidity, there's a lot of backing. When we go to banks, it's a bit different conversation now, obviously than it was in the 50s and 60s. But obviously you're getting deals by buying these mom and pop companies, but it's also not very, on the Lamar side, it was a gamble as well, because we didn't know how this would all turn out as well. But you also leaned heavily on that initial as you'd mentioned, you're more powerful, the bank's gonna lend to you, if you consolidate those few markets as one company, less lenders, less ownership and it really kind of made sense, but it was a gutsy move then as well. It was a gutsy move for twenty, thirty years as well.
00:22:56 · Charlie Lamar, Ian Dallimore
[00:22:56] S1: Ian, not to correct you, We didn't get a bank loan until probably 1983, 'eighty four. So back in those days in the 50s and 60s and 70s, the banks would not lend money. Well, the big banks would not lend money to us. We had a great relationship here with what was then the Louisiana National Bank and is now part of Chase. But as far as acquisition, borrowing millions of dollars, that's not what Kevin did. We have great stories of his basically swinging into a town like Fort Myers, Florida and there's a little company there and basically smoozing with the owners there who are thinking about getting out. And the big part of that, was not only did they had to come terms with the sale, but he had to talk the families into financings. Oh wow. Self financing, self financing, financing for the company. So basically we would put together or he, Kevin Sr. Would put together some local investors from the family and some local business people who became eventually our board members for a down payment. And pay maybe 20% down and 80% of it was owner financed. But the people knew, they knew the business, they knew us in the business. And so, he was able to buy, I don't know how many, five, 10, 15 companies along the way before we got into the bank financing. [00:24:37] S0: I just hold Just another shaking hands and kissing babies and maybe pay for a steak dinner.
00:24:37 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:24:37] S0: I just hold Just another shaking hands and kissing babies and maybe pay for a steak dinner. [00:24:41] S1: Yeah, really. But the banks didn't understand the business. So they saw on the books that we never made money because on the books, we never made money because billboards are depreciated over a short period of time. We all know billboards last a very long time. [00:25:00] S0: A long time, yeah. [00:25:01] S1: So as long as you kept buying new companies with new depreciation, our depreciation was greater than our net revenue. So even though our cash flow was tremendous, the banks just didn't understand it. Apparently the banks understand it now. Real well. Yeah.
00:25:01 · Charlie Lamar, Ian Dallimore
[00:25:01] S1: So as long as you kept buying new companies with new depreciation, our depreciation was greater than our net revenue. So even though our cash flow was tremendous, the banks just didn't understand it. Apparently the banks understand it now. Real well. Yeah. [00:25:22] S0: So you're in the business at this point and in 1982, you're joined, you're obviously, and highly recommend everyone listen to one of our first podcasts with Sean Reilly, who really goes into great detail about his kind of journey throughout the company as well. And he has a lot of great stories as do you. There's a lot of work and there's a lot of people that are doing a lot of things. We sit in this beautiful three story building here with 200 to 300 corporate employees, and we have over 3,000 plus across the country. Now, being a lawyer doesn't mean the only thing that you're doing in the job is being a lawyer. So talk to us a little bit about that. You said you did a little bit of the PR, you did a little bit of collections, you did a little, what does that look like for a company that next thing you know, you're going from three to four companies, 12 companies, 50 companies across. So the dots on the map start to add up. So the job responsibility on your end begins to increase and grow. What does that look like? And what does that look like around you?
00:26:25 · Charlie Lamar, Ian Dallimore
[00:26:25] S1: Well, from my personal legal job, it became more and more in addition to just the normal business stuff like contract disputes or leases and the occasional dispute with landowners or advertisers and stuff like that, it became more and more of the legislative matters. And that kept me busy, has always kept me busy, I mean, for years. As I joked with Kevin Jr. One time when I was talking about retiring and he said, How can you possibly leave? And I said, Kevin, you don't understand when you get a phone call, mostly you get a phone call from a manager. They're calling you to tell you they got a million dollar contract or something, okay? When I get a phone call from a manager, it means that there's somebody at some level locally trying to put him out of business. [00:27:18] S0: So
00:27:18 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:27:18] S0: So [00:27:20] S1: that's pretty much what I did traveling the country, to put out fires for years, legislative fires. On the one directly related to that, my role in the bigger picture, we were an acquisition company. Yes. We're always an acquisition company. So everybody developed their own kind of task in connection with that. And so my task was basically to study the zoning and sign regulations for the target market and figure out both how amenable it would be for operations and how the restrictions would affect our business, which they affect us both ways. On one hand, they limit the ability to build. On the other hand, they also limit the ability of others to build. So it's a two edged sword. And also another aspect of it is back in those wild and early days, you sometimes found out that the company you were buying, they didn't have permits for all the pill breaks that they were selling. So then you had to go through that process. So we had a team very active in the 80s.