Make no mistake about it, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker has been a big supporter of the Entercom/CBS merger. She’s always been a big fan of Entercom CEO David Field and how he’s run the company, and his consistently positive attitude about the radio industry.
At Radio Ink’s Forecast 2018 event Wednesday, her opinion hadn’t changed. However, Ryvicker did disagree with one aspect of what Field predicts. David Field has told investors and analysts that he expects to see 2% advertising revenue growth for the next several years, but Ryvicker said, “We are not there.” She expects the legacy Entercom stations to be flat to up 1% in 2018 and expects the CBS stations merging into Entercom to be down in the low single-digits. Ryvicker says those stations have been undermanaged.
Ryvicker said David Field and CFO Rich Schmaeling have done a phenomenal job. She will remain conservative but called the deal “a huge positive for radio.”
Ryvicker has a price target of $15 on the new company, and said she expects the deal to closed Friday.
How does she come up with a $15 price target when revenue at CBS stations is going to be down and Entercom stations flat to up 1%?