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OUT, OUTFRONT Media Inc.
A property business, read on funds from operations and net asset value rather than reported earnings.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Funds from operations per share have shrunk (−2% a year). The dividend takes 61% of FFO, and is covered. Debt is 49% of assets, moderate for a REIT. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.2B | $1.5B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.9B | RevenueRevenue |
| $91M | $126M | $108M | $140M | ($61M) | $36M | $143M | ($425M) | $258M | $147M | $187M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $313M | $301M | $244M | $283M | $71M | $177M | $294M | ($279M) | $249M | $305M | $343M | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| 60% | 67% | 83% | 74% | 106% | 33% | 70% | — | 84% | 69% | 61% | Dividend payout (FFO)Payout |
| $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.2B | $1.9B | $1.9B | $1.9B | Real estate (gross)RE gross |
| $3.7B | $3.8B | $3.8B | $5.4B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $6.0B | $5.6B | $5.2B | $5.3B | $5.2B | Total assetsAssets |
| 57% | 58% | 60% | 45% | 46% | 44% | 44% | 49% | 48% | 49% | 49% | Debt / assetsDebt/assets |
| $2.1B | $2.2B | $2.3B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $2.6B | $2.7B | $2.7B | $2.5B | $2.6B | $2.6B | Total debtDebt |
| $2.1B | $2.2B | $2.3B | $2.4B | $2.0B | $2.2B | $2.6B | $2.7B | $2.4B | $2.5B | $2.5B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 1.8× | 2.1× | 1.9× | 2.3× | 0.6× | 1.3× | 2.1× | -1.6× | — | — | 2.1× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $974M | $972M | $1.2B | $577M | $649M | $710M | $662M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 138M | 139M | 140M | 143M | 144M | 146M | 158M | 161M | 171M | 169M | 177M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $2.26 | $2.17 | $1.75 | $1.97 | $0.49 | $1.21 | $1.86 | $-1.73 | $1.46 | $1.80 | $1.94 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| $1.36 | $1.45 | $1.46 | $1.45 | $0.52 | $0.39 | $1.30 | $1.29 | $1.22 | $1.24 | $1.19 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $8.91 | $8.50 | $7.90 | $7.64 | $6.75 | $6.66 | $7.57 | $3.59 | $3.80 | $4.20 | $3.74 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −0.1%/yr | +4.8%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −2.6%/yr | +19.3%/yr |
| EPS | +3.2%/yr | — |
| Dividends / share | −1.0%/yr | +19.0%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +2.3%/yr | +7.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | −8.0%/yr | −9.1%/yr |
The year, in the company's words
the filing →Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Net income-43.1%
“Net Income Net income before allocation to redeemable and non-redeemable noncontrolling interests decreased $111.7 million, or 43%, in 2025, compared to 2024, primarily driven by a gain on disposition related to the Transaction in 2024, lower billboard revenues, and restructuring charges in 2025, partially offset by impairment charges incurred in 2024, higher transit revenues and lower interest expense.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- about $1.80 per shareNet income $147M + depreciation $160M − gains on sale $2M
What this means
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- CoveredDividends $210M ÷ FFO $305MIndustry peers: median 73%
What this means
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Debt / assets 49%ModerateTotal debt $2.6B ÷ assets $5.3BIndustry peers: median 50%
What this means
Every REIT runs on leverage; how much is the question. Heavy debt is what turns a property downturn into a wipeout, as 2008 showed, so a conservative balance sheet is part of the moat here, not a drag on it.
- Adequate(operating income + depreciation) ÷ interest $158MIndustry peers: median 3.7×
What this means
How many times the property cash earnings cover the interest bill. Comfortable coverage is what lets a REIT refinance through a tight credit market instead of being forced to sell into one.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
- Cash & short-term investments$67M
- Receivables$294M
- Other current assets$40M
- Accounts payable$33M
- Other current liabilities$459M
From the company's latest filing.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
True leverage: debt plus leases
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $4.1B, of which the leases are 37%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
$93M written down across 3 years (2018, 2021, 2023): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Male | $9.3M | $12.7M | $25M |
| 2022 | Mr. Male | $7.8M | $4.0M | $164M |
| 2023 | Mr. Male | $6.4M | $5.1M | $167M |
| 2024 | Mr. Male | $7.2M | $9.7M | $221M |
| 2025 | Mr. Brien | $5.9M | $8.6M | $219M |
| 2025 | Mr. Male | $3.2M | $5.6M | $219M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$30M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 10% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Does management own its misses?1 plain admission in this year's filing
“Prior to its sale in 2024, our Canadian operations comprised our International operating segment, which did not meet the criteria to be a reportable segment and accordingly, was included in Other .”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Specialty REITs
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WYWeyerhaeuser | $6.9B | 17% | 7.5% | 74% | 33% |
| LINELineage Inc. | $5.4B | 13% | 3.6% | 48% | 32% |
| COLDAmericold | $2.6B | 10% | 3.5% | 73% | 56% |
| LAMRLamar Advertising | $2.3B | 36% | 11.9% | — | 51% |
| OUTOUTFRONT Media Inc. | $1.8B | 16% | 5.1% | 70% | 48% |
| HHHHoward Hughes Holdings Inc. | $1.5B | 19% | 2.9% | — | 55% |
| TPLTexas Pacific Land | $798M | 67% | 37.5% | 28% | — |
| EPREPR Properties | $718M | 53% | 5.7% | 80% | 49% |
| Group median | — | 18% | 5.4% | 72% | 49% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
FFO / share, delivered32%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
FFO about $1.94 per share on 176M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Manual order: ← OUST its page in the Manual OVID →
Industry order: ← ORC the REITs — Specialty & Diversified chapter PEB →