Mary Berner is the best thing that ever happened to Cumulus Media.
Too bad it wasn’t five years ago when she took over from Lew Dickey.
Now, Cumulus is in a bad way – worse than they are letting on and worse than Wall Street cares to admit.
There is a reason why Cumulus is selling for $1.15 a share even after a recent reverse buyback.
The future is catching up with the present and debt, poor revenue results and middling programming success does not leave the second largest radio group much room to avoid bankruptcy.
Earnings are disappointing with no fix in sight.
And its $2.4 billion debt (second to iHeart’s whopping $20.8 billion) is hardly manageable under current conditions.
Over 50% of their larger PPM markets deliver about 50% of their revenue.
Even an optimist recognizes that impairment charges taken by Cumulus last year that adversely affected their performance are good comps for this year.
Even with Berner firmly in charge after a year, there is one thing that could push the company into bankruptcy.
Only one way to avoid it.
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