Investors don’t yet know anything about the terms of the deal announced by Westwood One to merge with Dial-Global in a stock swap, but WW1’s stock jumped on the news anyway. It won’t be until later in the week that the financial terms are set in stone and filed with the SEC.
THe New York Times Dealbook blog claimed that the total value of the deal was around $250 million, but provided no details.
WW1 shot up about 3% in early trading after the deal was announced Monday morning and moved up more throughout the session. By the closing bell Monday, WWON was at $6.45, up 77 cents for the day and its highest close since mid-May.
What little is known about the terms is that while WW1 will be the surviving entity – likely because it already has publicly traded stock – privately owned Dial-Global’s owners will have the majority stake in the post-merger company. That means that Oaktree Capital will succeed The Gores Group as the biggest shareholder.
RBR-TVBR observation: Announcement of the network radio merger happened to come on the same day that Oaktree Capital updated its pending $100 million IPO. But as we noted previously, radio is just a tiny, tiny part of the investments that the giant private equity company manages for its various funds. Thus, there is no mention in the updated prospectus of anything to do with Dial-Global, Westwood, Triton or the recent expansion of Townsquare Media.
