Did anybody hear about Cumulus Media? Jeff Warshaw from Connoisseur Media is trying to buy them out.
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Report: Jeff Warshaw Leads Effort To Acquire Cumulus Media
- Thread starter charles1234
- Start date
Several threads on this subject should be grouped under National Radio.
This looks like a low ball offer hoping to get a bite from some anxious equity owners.
It's also a case of David & Golliath. Connoisseur is way out of its league here. But who knows? It might work.
This looks like a low ball offer hoping to get a bite from some anxious equity owners.
It's also a case of David & Golliath. Connoisseur is way out of its league here. But who knows? It might work.
I understand your point, the market cap is around $290 million. If this is strictly based on stock price, it's generous.
But once again, I'm looking at asset value, because I'm expecting him to sell off lots of property to pay for this.
If that's the plan, it will take possibly a long time to fully execute that plan. Look at how long it took Cumulus to close just one land sale to Toll Brothers in the DC area.
If he is using other people's money, he might simply be thinking about a big pay day for himself as Chairman of a much larger company.
How many disposable yet readily marketable AM tower site lands remain?
I could see KRBE in Houston, the FMs in Atlanta, WMAL-FM in D.C., the stations in Detroit, and the two big FM signals in Minneapolis being marketable to existing in-market players. It is quite possible Cumulus has tried to sell some of these stations already and received unattractive offers or no offers.
If he is using other people's money, he might simply be thinking about a big pay day for himself as Chairman of a much larger company.
How many disposable yet readily marketable AM tower site lands remain?
I could see KRBE in Houston, the FMs in Atlanta, WMAL-FM in D.C., the stations in Detroit, and the two big FM signals in Minneapolis being marketable to existing in-market players. It is quite possible Cumulus has tried to sell some of these stations already and received unattractive offers or no offers.
There were a lot of extenuating issues in that deal. I think the LA and DC tower sites were the most lucrative.
They need to dump Hot 93.3…..YUCK!!
Billion dollar offer on Cumulus story on radioinsight.
Report: Jeff Warshaw Leads Effort To Acquire Cumulus Media.
A consortium of investors led by Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw has made an offer to acquire Cumulus Media for close to $1.2 billion, including debt, according to a story
Note this is in talks for now.
In Houston, I would think that either iHeart, Audacy or Apollo/Cox would jump at the chance to grab KRBE, as all have room under the market cap. And the current CHR format would be a great addition to any of those companies' existing cluster.
Speaking of KRBE, Houston is the only Texan Top 100 market to not have a CHR, mainstream or otherwise, owned by Texas-based iHeartMedia.
I'm not sure if iHeartMedia has to let go of one of their four AMs should Cumulus/Conossieur sell KRBE to them. Either that, or a trade of one of iHeart's clusters in a smaller market. With that said, iHeart has 4-5 FMs within their cluster in many markets.
Plus, Cumulus could sell either WLS-FM or WKQX in Chicago to Hubbard, plus WLS (AM).
Yes, the land had to be rezoned as just south of it is single family residential as you go up the hill. In LA, zoning like that to build a high density building complex can take years.
It remains to be seen, as Connoisseur Media has no CHR stations within its portfolio.
And Jan Jeffries no longer has control over Cumulus CHRs, though many of them continue to have a conservative/adult direction, dependent on market.
...And he may also end up willing to pay less, again depending on what's found once he has the chance to look more closely at the books and operation during said "due diligence" phase.
My understanding is Cumulus handed the programming keys back to the local level several years ago, dropping Jan’s strict top down orders on music. I’m guessing some stations found that the adult direction worked for them and kept it, or it worked for the market.
Good Lord..
iHeart currently has three FMs and four AMs in the Houston market, so they have room for one more FM. Meanwhile Audacy has four FMs and two AMs, so they also could add one more FM. And Apollo/Cox has four FMs, so room for one more there as well.
I guess this offer is no big deal. It seems it was dead on arrival. I would think Cumulus station employees in the bay area would love a new management team although it takes two in agreement to make a deal.
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