Live Nation Q3 Profit X3

Live Nation can be forgiven for asking “what economic slowdown?” with the Nov. 6 third quarter financial report showing profit has more than tripled over same period last year, with net income leaping from $41.6 million to $139.9 million.
While some of that increased income is attributable to sale of its motor sports division earlier in the year, LN showed strong performances across most of its operations.

The company also reported healthy increases in revenue and operating income for the third quarter of 2008, with additional spikes in attendance and total number of concerts produced over the same period last year.

Revenue rose to $1.59 billion in Q3 2008, compared to last year’s $1.45 billion. Operating income rose from $69.2 million to $75.6 million in the same period.

“We generated exceptional results during the third quarter in spite of the global economic downturn,” Live Nation President/CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement. “We continued to execute better and grow our core business with virtually all key metrics used to evaluate our business showing improvements. We increased the number of concerts we produced, we grew our ticket sales and improved our revenues and margins.

“Despite challenging times, millions of fans have continued to attend live concerts to support their favorite artists. Looking ahead, our primary goal remains centered on maximizing our global concert pipe for our client – the artist – and expanding into direct ticketing/online distribution, completing the world’s only concert-to-fan direct platform for artists,” Rapino concluded.

Among the key drivers in Q3 were Live Nation’s 4,839 concerts, up from 4,126, playing to 17,491,000 fans, up from 16,551,000. International festival attendance rose to 818,000 from 532,000 and sponsorship revenue also increased, from $66.5 million to $74.8 million from one year ago.

Broken down by division, North American Music revenue rose to $864 million from $789 million, International Music to $480.7 million from $334.4 million and Ticketing to $6.7 million from $4.8 million, with the addition new venues and clients under the LN Ticketing umbrella.

Artist Nation, which underwent transition with the exit of Michael Cohl and some key personnel, dropped in revenue to $225.7 million from 2007’s $301.3 million.

Overall, Live Nation said it earned $1.67 per share, up from 55 cents per share, while earnings from continuing operations – which excludes results from businesses that have been, or are in the process of being sold – totaled $118.2 million, or $1.41 per share.

The performance easily surpassed analysts’ predictions, including those surveyed by Thomson Reuters who expected a profit of 47 cents per share.

Looking ahead to Q4, Live Nation points to a “solid” concert lineup for the remainder of the year, including the remainder of Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet” tour (which the company projects will gross more than $290 million) and upcoming outings from Coldplay, AC/DC, Elton John and New Kids On the Block.

LN also reports that its ticketing platform remains on track for a Jan. 1 launch, and year-to-date sales of in-house tickets are already up 74 percent over last year’s.

“Live Nation continues to believe that it will be in a position to deliver strong adjusted operating income growth in 2009 and beyond as it continues to grow its core operations, realize the impact of its 2008 investments in venues and launch its ticketing operations,” the company said in a supplemental report.

Live Nation shares rose 5 cents per share to close at $10.09 as the report was released.