Connoisseur Media management led by CEO Jeff Warshaw have announced that they have completed a buyout of the private investment made by Ross Perot Jr.’s Petrus Holdings in 2015.
The deal will place “substantially all” of Connoisseur ownership in the hands of management and is supposedly the final piece of a series of transactions that has seen Connoisseur swap holdings to place their focus on Bridgeport and New Haven CT, Long Island NY and Frederick MD. In the past few months Connoisseur swapped their Allentown PA cluster to Cumulus for two in Bridgeport, swapped Erie PA to iHeartMedia for Frederick, and sold Billings MT to local management. Those follow 2018 sales of their Hartford CT properties to Full Power Radio and Trenton NJ to Townsquare Media.
No terms were disclosed, but neither was the 2015 investment by Petrus as it was never filed with the FCC.
Connoisseur Media has just completed a buyout in which members of management will now own substantially all of the company. This was the culmination of a series of strategic moves in which the company has also recently closed on transactions that added to its Connecticut holdings and also entered the Frederick, MD, market.
“Mike Driscoll and I started the company 15 years ago with the purchase of FCC Construction Permits in an auction. It’s gratifying to now be able to work with our major investor, Perot Holdings, to buy their stake in the company. They’ve been terrific partners to us. We are looking forward to growing our company, and we are excited that members of our senior management team are now owners. Ultimately, many of our employees will become stakeholders,” said Connoisseur CEO Jeffrey D. Warshaw.
“We feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with the best leadership team in the industry and two of the best leaders we have ever partnered with,” added Steve Blasnik of Perot Holdings.
Connoisseur Media is headquartered in Westport CT and owns 23 radio stations in seven markets: Bridgeport, Stamford/Norwalk and New Haven CT; Nassau-Suffolk (Long Island) NY; Frederick MD; Stroudsburg-Wilkes-Barre PA and Billings MT.
