It’s official. From its May 1999 Initial Public Offering as Radio One until yesterday, the multimedia company known today as Urban One had never seen its stock price so high.
Then came Friday’s Opening Bell, which saw yet another buying frenzy for a company that targets African Americans on a day that has given more attention to the Juneteenth celebration than ever before.
When all was said and done, Urban One’s Class A shares grew by another 45.2%, to $36.30 per share, and continued to climb in early after-hours trading. As of 4:21pm ET, “UONE” was trading at $36.50.
By comparison, one week ago, the issue closed at $1.84.
Some 25.57 million shares were traded, pushing the average volume on UONE to 2.14 million.
How did Urban One’s Class D “UONEK” perform on Friday? Shares were up 14.3% to $4.15. Volume was exceptionally strong, at 71.49 million shares.
Although some media organizations have openly suggested there is no apparent reason for the strong share gains, it is clear investors are showing their support for a company that not only owns the MGM National Harbor Resort & Casino and radio stations, but also national audio syndication arm Reach Media and two cable TV networks superserving African Americans — Cleo and TV One.
Furthermore, the gains come as RBR+TVBR has exclusively report the reason why Brigade Capital Management decided to shed its entire stake in Urban One. According to an SEC filing, Urban One entered into a transaction with Brigade to acquire 3,208,288 shares of Urban One’s Class D Common Stock at $0.762 cents per share. “Upon settlement of the transaction, the company will retire the shares,” Urban One noted Thursday.
Urban One President/CEO Alfred Liggins III personally acquired some 729,873 shares of “UONEK” from Brigade, at the same strike price. This transaction was valued at $556,163.23.
It’s effectively a stock buyback, and perhaps a show of strength as Brigade is best-known for its leveraged capital structures fund and has stakes in both Cumulus Media and iHeartMedia.
