Connoisseur CEO Jeff Warshaw is sure acting funny lately.
He has sold off some major assets recently – the Buckley stations he bought in Hartford and the moneymaking WPST-FM, Trenton and two insignificant AM’s near the Jersey Shore for $17 million.
That sale was curious enough because no matter how crunched a radio company is today with debt and cash flow problems, they rarely sell the stations that are producing lifeblood cash flow for them.
That’s the problem Larry Wilson has at Alpha. He wants to sell the marginal stuff and buyers want the cash producers.
But Warshaw is selling cash flow, a startling revelation unless you believe he has another play ready to go.
From the intel we’re gathering, it now appears Connoisseur wants to make a run at Cumulus.
- Warshaw reportedly wants to pull a Lew Dickey – Remember back when Dickey made a hostile takeover of Citadel after it had become virtually debt free? At the time Dickey’s Cumulus was in financial hot water itself so the only way he could survive was to grow – to buy another radio group free of debt and bury the considerable Cumulus debt in it. Warshaw’s got debt problems of his own right now which might be why he is willing to sell positive cash flow assets to stay afloat.
- How spinoffs would be handled
- What Connoisseur would do with unwanted markets
- Why is a relatively small and mediocre company like Connoisseur trying to take over Cumulus
- How Warshaw puts Connoisseur at risk by making this hostile takeover try
- Warshaw’s takeover bid – by the numbers
- How does a Warshaw takeover affect Lew Dickey’s take back of Cumulus
- What kind of financial shape is Cumulus really in to be getting potentially two offers
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