Townsquare Media has filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission to make stock in the company available via an IPO.
Seeking to raise around $143.8 million, The amount of shares to be offered and price range for the offering have not yet been determined. BofA Merrill Lynch, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets, Guggenheim Securities and Macquarie Capital will serve as joint book-running managers for the offering. The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus.
Reuters reports that Townsquare had debt of about $645 million, which the income from the IPO will be used to help pay off.
Townsquare Media was founded in May 2010 as Oaktree Capital pulled the former Regent Communications out of bankruptcy. Oaktree would later merge its other radio station holdings into Townsquare while growing the company through acquisitions of Millennium Radio Group and Double O Radio and large stations swaps with Cumulus. Townsquare has also grown on the digital side with purchases of former web holdings of MOG and AOL.
Bad news. Bad for the company’s stations and the people who (still) work there. Bad for any suckers who buy the company’s stock. In debt and issuing stock to pay it off; that should tell people something.
The decline of NJ 101.5 continues.
Eventually, Bain Capital or some other venture capital or private equity firm will have gotten the whole thing at other people’s expense.