biography on Bloomberg
Profile at Crestview, the PE firm he represents
His radio roots go back to Chancellor, which became AMFM radio, which was quickly merged into Clear Channel. He also was involved with Cable TV in the early days, and sold out to TCI. His formal education is a BA degree in Economics from Berkeley. His is also a director of the ADL, so Savage can relax about his job security.
Crestview Capital (and Jeff Marcus) arrived at Cumulus as part of the transaction in 2011 where Cumulus acquired Citadel, getting 51 million shares of Class A stock, and options to buy another 7 million shares at $4.34 a share
Details
Crestview really becomes important with the Citadel merger.
SEC filing
The “who’s who” behind that deal, and who probably yanked the ball away from the Dickeys:
- Crestview
- Macquarie Capital
- UBS (Switzerland)
Institutional Investors
(Interestingly, the co-owner of iHeart also owns 10 million shares of Cumulus)
There are $610 million in 7.75% bonds that become payable on demand under certain conditions (there is the smoking gun)
In the end, control of a corporation is not based on how many shares anyone owns, but by how the board members vote.
Crestview’s two votes + 2 women directors = majority
Something I said earlier turns out to be wrong. Unlike some of the others, Cumulus does not have a special 10:1 voting class. The Class A stock that the Dickeys and Jeff Marcus control both have one vote per share. That only becomes important if the Dickeys wanted to wage a proxy vote to throw people off the board
Lew Dickey got a $4.35 million Golden Parachute to encourage him to leave quietly
http://www.insideradio.com/free/lew-dickey-cumulus-package-cloud-with-ilver-lining/article_b90b01f4-681e-11e5-bedc-bf7a82fe8e3b.html?mode=jqm
The changes start
http://www.insideradio.com/free/cumulus-reshuffles-country-programmers/article_19771614-6864-11e5-95d3-93284684c14e.html?mode=jqm
The Program director of a Country station in Indianapolis is headed to Atlanta to be the new Corporate Director of Programming.
WestwoodOne just announced a multi year contract extension with Nielsen
http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=2979362
Cumulus isn’t going anywhere, although October 18th I expect the company to have a new Corporate Identity.
Things are moving fast. People hoping to bottom feed at $.40 a share will be going without