A funny thing happened just hours after I posted last week’s update on iHeartMedia’s dance with bankruptcy earlier this year: I got an e-mail from a PR flack contesting my analysis. But it wasn’t just any flack — it was Wendy Goldberg, iHeart’s chief communications officer. She was displeased with several points I made.
To begin, Goldberg asserted that I had misconstrued the timeline of events surrounding the company’s near-default. Instead, iHeart conducted a pre-emptive strike against “a small group of lenders” who planned to call in some $6 billion of the company’s $20+ billion outstanding debt burden within 60 days. (This would indeed have immediately tipped the company into default.) Secondly, my she called my assertion that this close call, in my words, worried “the market that the conglomerate is just steps away from bankruptcy” was seemingly, in her words, “confused at best, and speculation at worst.”
Finally, Goldberg took umbrage with my contention that iHeartMedia remains near the precipice: “I am assuming this is your own opinion or speculation, and if so you should either couch it as such or remove it.” Continue reading “iHeartMedia's Thin Skin on Corporate Finances”
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