Friday, December 30th (5:00 pm ET) is set as the expiration date of the “Dutch auction” tender that Emmis Communications launched at the beginning of the month to buy back some of its preferred stock. The shares continue to trade above the maximum price that Emmis is offering, so it will be interesting to see how much participation the tender attracts.
The thinly traded preferred shares last traded on Wednesday, December 28 at $16.67. But that was for only 200 shares. The tender offer that Emmis revised in mid-month, raising only the minimum but not the maximum, maxes out at $15.56.
Emmis is offering to buy back up to $6 million worth of its 6.25% Series A Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock, but it is unlikely to be able to spend all of the allocated cash. A group of preferred shareholders who’ve banded together in a lock-up to keep any of their shares from being tendered hold enough that shares that the remaining available shares won’t get Emmis to that tender goal of buying $6 million worth.
RBR-TVBR observation: We don’t know who made the most recent purchase at $16.67, but we do know that Zazove Associates made several purchases this month at prices above the $15.56 maximum being offered in the Emmis tender.
