Report: Clear Channel to keep Midcoast Maine stations

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 05:35:50 -0500, "Barry Cabbage" <outofthebusiness@hotmail.com> said:

> Clear Channel as an operator of radio stations is dead, dead, dead.  Venture 
> capitalists don't invest in radio to run businesses, they invest to sell at 
> a  profit.

These guys (Bain Capital and Lee Partners) are private-equity firms.
Their typical modus operandi is to take companies private, restructure
them by selling off "non-core" assets, and then taking the remainder
public again (usually at a substantial profit) several years later.
In the mean time, they want a steady stream of revenue (as opposed to
Wall Street which wants steadily increasing profits) to pay them some
return on capital.  That's why many private-equity firms are sniffing
around newspaper publishers -- the Street hates the newspaper
business, because it has poor growth prospects, but PE firms love it
because it throws off lots of cash which can fund their other
investments.

Lee Partners, as I mentioned in a previous message, is also involved
in taking Univision private.

-GAWollman