Buyers shave $2B from Clear Channel radio deal
New owners for Power99, Q102, WDAS and other Philly radio stations. Investors Bain Capital and Thos. H. Lee say they'll pay just under $18 billion to take radio chain Clear Channel Communications Inc. private, after promising $20B last summer.
A couple of Boston private equity firms have jawed down the price of Clear Channel Communications Inc., the giant radio chain, by $2 billion, to $18 billion, in another sign the deal business has found a new footing -- tho at a lower price level -- following months of uncertainty and fear.
Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital will pay $36 a share to take Clear Channel private, vs their original offer of $39.20 "at the peak of the private equity boom last year," Reuters reports. Story here.
The deal apparently ends a Wall Street drama of greed and fear, in about that order. Shareholders had challenged the buyers' initial offer last summer as too low. But then the credit market collapsed, and Citigroup and other big banks who'd agreed to finance the original offer started complaining the price was too expensive.
Clear Channel stations in Philadelphia are WUSL/Power 99, WIOQ/Q102, WRFF at 104.5, WDAS-FM at 105.3, WISX (My 106.1), and WUBA (Rumba 1480-AM), as the Inquirer's Michael Klein recently reminded Phillydeals.