Article re: Radio Unica's bankruptcy...

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/news.asp?newsid=2220790&tick=

GE Commercial Finance's Global Media &Communications Unit Arranges MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. Acquisition of Radio Unica Assets
3/30/04


NORWALK, Conn., Mar 30, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
GE Commercial Finance's Global Media &Communications unit announced today that it arranged the provision of $185 million in senior secured financing for the acquisition of Radio Unica's radio station assets by MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc. (MRBI). The GE Comme
rcial Finance unit was the sole lead arranger and administrative agent for the financing, which closed in February.

New York City-based MRBI is the 15th largest broadcaster in the U.S. based on number of radio stations owned. Most of the company's radio stations are engaged in block programming/time brokerage sales to Asian, Hispanic, and other ethnic programmers. The company also produces its own programming primarily targeting the Chinese community in Los Angeles and New York City. MRBI is privately owned by the Liu family.

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GE's Capital Markets Group syndicated the financing, which was oversubscribed, to a combination of commercial banks and institutional investors including GE, which committed $50 million to the facility. 'The syndication's success was even more noteworthy given that this was MRBI's first debt issuance in the bank loan syndication market and this was the largest acquisition in the company's history,'said Mr. Komjathy.

'The GE Commercial Finance/Global Media &Communications team provided indispensable support for our bid, via effective communications with the sellers, an appropriate deal structure, timely delivery of financing, and syndication expertise,'said Arthur Liu, President and CEO, MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc. 'We could not have completed this transaction without their responsiveness, creativity, and commitment.'

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AAmerica?

OK...letsee if this makes a little sense.

Radio Unica...a Spanish broadcasting company that owned the Chicago & LA stations that air Air America went bankrupt. The properties were sold, including two to Multi-Cultural Brodcasting (MBCI), who either were going to lease their airtime on both stations or sell them outright (I've heard both) to Air America.

Looks like the Liu family, the money behind MBCI...the company that is buying the stations that are leasing the time right now to Air America, messed up with the financing through GE Capital. This is not uncommon these days in broadcast sales thanks to extremely high property or license values and low advertising revenues...banks aren't too happy to jump in...especially to a small, untested company such as MBCI.

In a nutshell: MBCI's "check bounced", not Air America. This isn't some black helicopter/GE conspiracy...just business. Someone didn't make a payment on time and the banks aren't sitting still these days.

Say that you've just bought a car... and the person you've bought that car from, paid the original owner of that car, with a rubber check (the check bounced). So now, the original owner is now staking claim to the car that YOU just bought. Well, since the guy you have just bought it from, never quite owned it in the first place, the first owner has a case.

Basically, it seems that the airtime was never the seller's (that sold the airtime to AA) to sell.

This should clear it up for everyone.
Sorry to the over-enthusiastic freeps bandwagon. Eat your words.