Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 2, 2024

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.53 EPS, expectations were $-0.2. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good afternoon. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Live Nation's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Yong. Thank you, Ms. Yong. You may begin your conference.

Amy Yong: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Live Nation first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining us today is our President and CEO, Michael Rapino, and our President and CFO, Joe Berchtold. We would like to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including statements related to the company's anticipated financial performance, business prospects, regulatory and legal matters, new developments and similar matters. Please refer to Live Nation's SEC filings, including the risk factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings on Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K for a description of risks and uncertainties that could impact the actual results.

Live Nation will also refer to some non-GAAP measures on this call. In accordance with the SEC Regulation G, Live Nation has provided definitions of these measures and a full reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures in the earnings release. The release reconciliation can be found under the Financial Information section on Live Nation's website. With that, I will now turn it over to our President and CFO, Joe Berchtold.

A group of people in a large music venue, enjoying a vibrant concert.

Joe Berchtold: Thanks, Amy. We appreciate there's a lot of interest in what's going on with the DOJ. So let me address that upfront. We obviously know about the press reports claiming the DOJ Antitrust division has decided to file a lawsuit against Live Nation, potentially seeking a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. At this point, we're just about to begin discussions with senior division leadership about the issues their staff has been investigating, which is typically in the final phase of an investigation. Decisions about whether to sue over what, and what relief to seek ordinarily made at the end of that process. Of course, we know that some competitors and interest groups are urging the DOJ to sue us and sue us to break us up.

Let me add that -- let me address directly. As we previously stated, the DOJ's investigation appears to be focused on specific business practices, not the legality of Live Nation Ticketmaster merger or our overall business structure. Very little of the conduct that DOJ has raised with us relates to the combination of ticketing and promotion resulting from the merger. And most of what does was anticipated and addressed by the consent decree allowing the merger to go forward. Based on the issues we know about, we don't believe a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster would be a legally permissible remedy. Live Nation and Ticketmaster came together lawfully through a merger that the DOJ reviewed and approved subject to divestitures and other remedies.

The DOJ has repeatedly stated in court filings that the merger and settlement were in the public interest. Furthermore, structural relief such as the divestiture is rarely granted. Legally, it's only available where there is a strong connection between the corporate structure and the company's ability to engage in the allegedly unlawful conduct. We believe that connection is lacking with regard to the bulk of the issues in this investigation, since the conduct under scrutiny falls either within our ticketing segment or within our concert segment and not across those segments. We're looking forward to our upcoming meetings with the division leadership and remain hopeful that we can amicably resolve any remaining disputes. But if not, we're prepared to defend ourselves in court.

That's all we're going to say on the DOJ on this call. And operator, can we now open it for questions for me and Michael?

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