According to Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Credit Analyst Philip Brendel, iHeart and its creditors are close to a restructuring deal, despite Liberty Media’s last minute unsolicited bid to inject over $1 billion into the company. He calls the Liberty Media pitch to get involved a distraction.
Brendel tells The San Antonio Express-News he doesn’t think iHeart and its lenders are going to let this bid distract them away from finalizing term sheets. “And, I think this is something for them to be considering within bankruptcy.” But, Brendel tells the paper he doesn’t think Liberty would get the something based on the original bid. “But if they moved up dramatically maybe something could get done.”
On February 1, iHeart chose not to make a $106 million interest payment. The 30 day grace period to make that payment is coming up and iHeart will either have to make that payment, face the possibility of default or file for a restructure. iHeart and some of its lenders have been going back and forth with term sheets trying to resolve iHeart’s $20 billion in debt, a number it has been unable to budge for years.
iHeart is the largest radio company in the country with over 850 radio station and nearly 20,000 employees.
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If iHeart or any other large, radio organizations saddled with insurmountable debt keep on running the same business and communicative practices as they always have, they will only be moving ever closer to the abyss.