Cumulus Media, seeking to eliminate its heavy debt burden, has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in bankruptcy court for the second time in under nine years.
The media company said this reorganization is “prepackaged,” meaning a financially distressed company obtains support for the plan from its lenders before filing.
“The company will continue operating in the ordinary course throughout the process, with no impact to employees, partners or listeners,” it said in the announcement.
In 2018 the company concluded a previous Chapter 11 reorganization to alleviate $1 billion in debt.
Cumulus is seeking to eliminate $600 million in debt this time. It said this would eliminate substantially all of its remaining debt and significantly strengthen its financial position.
The company’s OTC stock closed at around 8 cents per share yesterday. Cumulus moved its stock off of NASDAQ last spring in the face of a delisting threat.
President/CEO Mary Berner said: “While we have outperformed the market on many of our most important metrics, including share gains in both local and digital revenue, the broader macroeconomic and industry-wide pressures we have faced have remained unrelenting. Against that backdrop, it became clear that Cumulus’s remaining debt burden limited our ability to fully realize the company’s potential, and this agreement represents a major step forward.”
The case is in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Cumulus owns 394 radio stations, the Westwood One audio network and the Cumulus Podcast Network. It is the third-largest commercial U.S. radio group by revenue.
