That’s what iHeart CEO Bob Pittman told Bloomberg in an interview from CES on Friday, when asked by a reporter about the company’s debt. He said there’s probably not many other media companies that can make that claim. “The operating business has been doing very well. From the standpoint of transferring it from an old media company to a new media company with digital plays, events, social, etc. and this company has always had a lot of debt. When I joined this company it had already had this debt from the leveraged buyout done. The first step for us has always been to get the operating business transformed which is way underway and we’ve seen evidence of its success.”
Pittman also said the consumers love for digital is not hurting the radio business. “The broadcast audience is up so we’re not being hurt by digital. Our digital audience is up so that’s a nice add-on. And all these other pieces fit together. So I suspect when you have a company that’s doing well, we’ll figure out how to get the capital structure more normalized.”
When asked directly about $10 Billion in debt that’s coming due in 2018 Pittman said that starts with having a company that’s valuable and a business that people want. “When I came to the company, we had a wall of debt in 2014 and 2016 and we managed to deal with that, so my expectation is we will indeed figure out a way to make sense for everybody and there are a lot of experts helping us with this.”
Pittman was also asked if he would you consider a chapter 11 bankruptcy. He said he thinks the company is doing very well, “so clearly I’m not the one who’s going to address any of our tactics or strategies about how we’ll deal with it, but I suspect listening to everybody who participates in this capital structure, we’ll figure out solutions for the company that work for everybody.”
Watch the entire Pittman interview HERE
From Bloomberg Oct’16 — ‘iHeart, whose total debt tops $21 billion, has posted eight years of losses, and Cumulus, which owes $2.4 billion, lost half a billion dollars last year, more than seven times its market capitalization. Shares of both have plunged more than 80 percent in two years and their debt, already junk-rated, may be downgraded again by S&P Global Ratings.’ But, you know… “doing good”.
Damn, I want some of what Bob is smoking.