00:31:43 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:31:43] S0: Year is 1996 is when Lamar made its initial public offering. [00:31:48] S1: But to get to that day and what happened before that day, we actually pretty much backed into going public. It was not back in 1991, it wasn't even a thought because it was our family business. Why would we sell it to the public? I mean, why would we sell it to other people? It's like selling it to somebody, some other billboard company. We wouldn't do that. And we really didn't think in terms of the sophisticated way it has turned out now. But we got basically forced into it by the financial crises of the early 90s where we had built over time, we built up buying more and more companies. Our our bank debt, debt got larger and larger. And strangely enough, these banks decided they want us to pay off the loan. Well, there's no way we're gonna pay off. I mean, we couldn't pay off the loan. Who had that kind of money? We would refinance every three, four years. And so that was a great operating model, a financial model for a while. But anyway, so we were told various avenues for saving the company. [00:33:00] S0: And [00:33:03] S1: eventually, well, first thing we did was back in 1991, I think we issued a bond. That really saved us. And so the whole idea that you could borrow money for ten years and all you had to do is pay interest on it was just like, wow, this is a great... [00:33:21] S0: I'll take one of those bonds today, by the way. [00:33:26] S1: Interest rate was a little high [00:33:27] S0: back in
00:33:27 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:33:27] S0: back in [00:33:27] S1: those days, it was a lot high. But it's still relieving us of principal payments just changed the whole thing. So from 1991 to 1996, it just became more and more apparent on the one hand that this was a great device. And on the other hand, the financial markets became more and more amenable or receptive to the outdoor advertising companies. And so another company did an IPO, I guess in 1994 or 1995. And so we looked at it and said, well, is a great way to raise capital and really get big. So it's very exciting. It's a little in ways bittersweet because we were no longer our because of the stock structure that the family still maintains control or specifically the Riley branch of the family still maintains control, which is basically in the best of both worlds from both our point of view but apparently from the investors' point of view too because there's this solid line leadership that you don't have to worry about raters or But stuff like in any event, brought us to that day. And it's worked out fantastic when we really made the big leaps. [00:35:02] S0: So you retire in 'ninety eight, which is funny because you're still here every day, most every day. [00:35:09] S1: Well, when I'm here in Baton Rouge, I'm here. [00:35:11] S0: Yeah, you're here. And it's, which is one of the, again, going back to when I first met you and first met Kevin Riley senior, I was like, wow, here's the family that still comes to work every day. You retire in 'ninety eight, you become a part of the board in what year?
00:35:11 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:35:11] S0: Yeah, you're here. And it's, which is one of the, again, going back to when I first met you and first met Kevin Riley senior, I was like, wow, here's the family that still comes to work every day. You retire in 'ninety eight, you become a part of the board in what year? [00:35:29] S1: Oh, I became a member of the board when it was formed in 1974 or 'seventy two. [00:35:34] S0: So the next question is really around, you've seen some massive changes, the industry has changed, which I love telling a lot of our digital friends, newer friends in the space and the advertisers in the space, the younger people, even our producer faith, we talk about all the time. It's like, even during my time at Lamar eighteen years ago, we had 94 billboards, digital billboards. Now we have over almost 4,500, 5,000 if you include our transit, the space has evolved significantly from hand paint to hand posting to recycling to digital comes out twenty one years ago for Lamar, and it's just this constant evolution. And then now the acceptance of programmatic and how we automate things and just how, just in general, how we do business is significantly different to your point back in the day, where it was just kinda like, here's a handful of little small companies. What are, if you had to pick two or three pivotal moments that you've seen in your lifetime at this company, what would those be besides Lamar going public?
00:36:36 · Charlie Lamar, Ian Dallimore
[00:36:36] S1: Yeah, I would say the financial side was the big turning points and opportunity that those changes afforded to us when we had bank financing and then when we got an IPO, gave us the capital to make really big transactions, which transformed the business, which transformed corporate because of all that. But in meanwhile, I would say technologically, there were some markers along the way that I always remember that the more recent digital is by far the biggest change in the industry ever. But when I was a kid, all the billboards had trim around [00:37:15] S0: them.
00:37:15 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:37:15] S0: them. [00:37:15] S1: You're probably too young to even remember trim. But it basically was a picture frame. Billboards were a picture frame. I remember when I was in college, so that's 1968 or so, I saw that the billboard company in Boston where I was in college, they had removed the tram and it was really radical looking. And I remember telling Kevin Sr. That on vacation and it was funny, he just kind of thought about it for a minute and he was actually from Boston. And he said, Oh, well, that's just a fad or something to that effect. He kind of dismissed it. And of course, probably five or ten years later, there's no trim on any bulletins. Now the posters actually had trim until probably twenty five years later. And so that was a big deal. The other big deal was when we went from paper to vinyl and from painted sections, which probably many people that hear this broadcast don't realize that until very recently, the big billboards, the bulletins were painted onto metal sections and then reassembled from the shop and onto the on-site section by section, which that was one of my summer jobs was painting billboards. [00:38:32] S0: Billboards, tub.
00:38:32 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:38:32] S0: Billboards, tub. [00:38:33] S1: And that is just radically different. But again, neither of those big changes were as comparable to the digital. And I remember the whole idea of digital coming along and about if you take a longer view, digitals kind of grew out of the concept of the new television screen. So televisions used to have a real big box with a cathode ray tube in the back of it and it had to have the depth so that they could shoot the image through. And then they came along and television started being produced with all that we have now, basic and plasma vision and all that stuff. Well, some advertisers after a while started figuring out how they could use that technology for out of home. But there was no way to put those on the highway. Because in the sunshine, some listeners may be old enough to remember, when you first got your first plasma television, you had to be careful that you shaded the because otherwise it would just blank out on you. And so needless to say, the digital it took a while for that technology to catch up with the intensity of the light. But when it did, I'm proud to say that Lamar Advertising was the first in the business to actually devote the resources to building them out and marketing them. And also say that I was a skeptic. Really? It was extremely So you're expensive to build one [00:40:08] S0: of